Large house - looking to rent it out

hcb42

00ec25 wrote: »

you would have a 3 storey 5 bedroom property - that is instantly into mandatory licensing territory - failure to licence is a criminal (not civil) offence with fines up to £20k. The safety requirements as hinted at above will be exacting and could be expensive if needed from scratch

G_M wrote: »

00es25 said:


If let to a single family it would not be an HMO.

Thanks, I was referring to the later statement which said it was "instantly" into mandatory licencing territory, hence the confusion.,

I wanted to clarify as my old house sounded exactly the same, and there was some ambiguity there.:)

tom9980

runninglea wrote: »

ok will have a serious think

Will ring up the council and also the local uni which is only 8-9 miles away

You have no chance of getting students interested in that property given the distance.

thelem

tom9980 wrote: »

You have no chance of getting students interested in that property given the distance.

Agreed. Remember most students will walk to lectures, often making the journey between home and campus twice a day.

runninglea

tom9980 wrote: »

You have no chance of getting students interested in that property given the distance.

Quite a few of the students rent here as the local uni does teaching and nursing. The placements are usually around here so quite a few students are resident here

diable

It might be an idea to let the rooms out in the house as you are "living" there in the smallest rooms as then you have lodgers a lot of them........

If someone moves out then it doesn't impact on the loss of income as much as one family moving out.

camptownraces

diable wrote: »

It might be an idea to let the rooms out in the house as you are "living" there in the smallest rooms as then you have lodgers a lot of them........

If someone moves out then it doesn't impact on the loss of income as much as one family moving out.

Be careful with this idea. The landlord really has to use the smallest room as his principal residence, and to share facilities with the "lodgers".

Otherwise the "lodgers" may have the protection afforded by a tenancy, and the house will be subject to HMO licensing.

roses

If you let this as a 4 bed house to either sharers or a family, it is not an HMO.

HMO only applies to 5 unrelated people living together in a 3+ storey house.

Bluebonnie

roses wrote: »

If you let this as a 4 bed house to either sharers or a family, it is not an HMO.

HMO only applies to 5 unrelated people living together in a 3+ storey house.

Having four names on tenancy agreement(s) does not guarantee that fewer than five people actually occupy the place. OP has said there are 3 stories to the house.

As soon as there are five or more unrelated people, the landlord is potentially in a difficult situation, which could cost quite lot in fines or legal fees, because the house will be subject to mandatory HMO licensing.

Letting to a family of four who then take a lodger could cause this to happen.

V_Chic_Chick

runninglea wrote: »

ok will have a serious think

Will ring up the council and also the local uni which is only 8-9 miles away

There's no way that students are going to rent that far away from uni. In my experience, they want to live no more than 2-3 miles away from uni, even when there is an excellent bus service.

The time taken to get into uni, the expense of bus travel, living nowhere near their friends and probably nowhere near the nightlife will mean that it is a highly unattractive property unless you are offering it for 25p per week.

There are plenty of young, single, low paid workers who live in HMOs, so you might be better off looking to rent to them.

Don't forget to factor in the cost of fully furnishing the house, including double beds (which come as standard nowadays, even when renting to singletons), wardrobes, bookshelves, white goods, kitchen table, TV, sofas and so on into the cost of kitting it out as an HMO. Very few people at that stage of life have their own bed / other furniture, so your property will be instantly passed over by many if it is not fully furnished. At an absolute minimum, the communal areas will all need to be fully furnished.

dimbo61

Give a local estate/letting agent a call and ask for them to come and look at the property!
They maybe happy to tell you what market you should be aiming at
IE family, HMO, students, single working people etc
The size of the bedrooms 10m2 + for a double and kitchens+bathrooms most be up to a good standard if you want student/HMO rental.
Fast broadband, fully furnished, smoke alarms ( interlinked + Control panel as three storey), gas safety cert, electrical safety cert etc