Renting partly furnished

belfastguy30

I am in the process of trying to rent out my apartment partly furnished and was just wondering if anyone could give me a few tips on what to do and what not to do?!

Firstly, I think I will be using a letting agent to deal with finding someone for me but I will probably deal with the tenants directly as I cant afford to be giving 10% of the monthly rent to an agent. In terms of what constitutes partly furnished are there any particular things that I need to provide? I plan to leave sofas, kitchen appliances such as fridge freezer, dishwasher and washing machine and then some wardrobes and a television. Is there a requirement to provide anything else eg. vacuum cleaner, crockery, lamps etc? If I leave a television who has the responsibility for paying for the TV licence?

Any other general advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

penthouse89

Furnished, or indeed, part furnished, doesn't have a definition.

You can leave anything you like, depending on what sort of rental market you're appealing to: students/families/professionals...

Werdnal

TV license, council tax and all utilities are responsibility of the tenant.

Are you sure you know enough about letting, tenancy law etc to run the let yourself. Are you going to be nearby to handle repairs, inspections and problems with tenants?

Good post here:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=41160642&postcount=12

Read, learn and inwardly digest, as many people think letting is simple - far from it, much legal stuff to comply with, tax to declare, insurance, deposit protection, eviction, notices to the tenant if you want them to leave, inspection rights, repair obligations - list goes on and on.

Make sure your know what you are doing BEFORE you get tenants in!

From your user name, is the property in Belfast? If so, check whether there are any specific regs that differ over there, as the post above is strictly England/Wales legislation, and whilst much may be the same, there may be some variations.

jamie11

My suggestion would be to NOT leave any soft furnishings or mattresses, make them buy their own because any you leave will (probably) not be fit for purpose after the tenancy ends. It also saves you from being accused of leaving infested beds etc.

Television? Let them buy their own, you are not in the entertainment providing business.

mrsmchapman

Are you providing a rental or a holiday home?

There are no rules on what to and what not to leave, however I was under the impression that the items left as furnished would have be replaced by yourself should they break, are you really going to keep supplying goods? I.e tvs?

All bills are those of the tenant, tv licence, gas/electric, water, council tax etc

belfastguy30

Thank you all for the advice! I will be renting out on a permanent basis and will be going to a place which already has brand new furniture but I think based on all your advice I will leave the bare minimum! Will be leaving sofas, a couple of wardrobes and the main kitchen appliances as they are built in and have to leave the beds but will maybe invest in new unopened mattresses if need be.

I will be living close enough by to deal with repairs etc. I just had been told though by other people that yes a letting agent is good for the finding and evicting etc but in terms of repairs etc all they actually do is phone up the landlord to tell them what the problems are. Will have to think about this more carefully I guess!

Yorkie1

In England / Wales there are strict rules about soft furnishings (this including sofas etc) meeting the Fire Regs / labelling rules. If you are elsewhere, it wouldn't surprise me to find similar rules there too.

belfastguy30

Based on the above advice I'm just going to leave behind a few things. I will have to leave behind a brand new wardrobe which I cant take with me but I was also planning on leaving a couple of chests of drawers which are a bit flimsy and have a tendency to come off the runners down and again. I have managed to live with this even though it can be a nuisance but would I be better off taking them away altogether before renting out or leaving them here but just making the tenants aware that they are not in perfect condition? I dont want to have to start forking out for new ones if I get a call in a few months time to say that they are broken just because I happened to provide some in the first place!

kloana

belfastguy30 wrote: »

Based on the above advice I'm just going to leave behind a few things. I will have to leave behind a brand new wardrobe which I cant take with me but I was also planning on leaving a couple of chests of drawers which are a bit flimsy and have a tendency to come off the runners down and again. I have managed to live with this even though it can be a nuisance but would I be better off taking them away altogether before renting out or leaving them here but just making the tenants aware that they are not in perfect condition? I dont want to have to start forking out for new ones if I get a call in a few months time to say that they are broken just because I happened to provide some in the first place!

I think you'd be better either leaving no furniture at all, or leaving only good-quality, fully-working furniture (which could also obviously break over time!).

If I was looking to rent part-furnished, I'd be put off by the idea that my LL already knew some items were iffy, whether I was forewarned or not. Otherwise I'd feel as though I was merely babysitting your junk

Merely forewarning the tenants that some items are poor wouldn't necessarily cut it, unless you were prepared to repair/replace the items if/when they did break. I don't have much of a clue as to the legalities/technicalities of it all, but would expect that 'part furnished' should mean part-furnished for the duration of the tenancy, and not just until something broke

suestew

just remember that anything you leave there is part of the tenancy, so if it brakes you have to replace it. make sure you get a proper inventory done and take pictures of the condition of all goods/carpets etc.
good luck