Daydream fund challenge part 4

ferretkeeper

Morning! Bright and mild again here, not sure if it's going to last, there's some grey clouds about...lovely photos guys, I too am hopeless at taking pics.

My Plan for the week is up in the air, I really wanted to have more done in the garden before the next cold snap, but it might have to wait.

Today's going to spent at least in part getting our rental house tidied up. In an effort to reduce my work load at the farm's busy time we've decided to stop the holiday lets and just rent it out, so I half heartedly stuck an ad on a local FB group and I've been inundated!

I need to go and tidy up my crafty workshop stuff and rearrange the furniture a bit before the first viewing later - we nicked one of the sofas and put it in our house for xmas, it's like new and really comfy, Dogs have got the old sofa in their room!

Yes CTC our neighbour's plot is so much higher that they can see over the trellis which is along the boundary, and as their land keeps rising up beyond that they can see right over into our garden and yard - if they venture that far! They're keeping their distance more lately but I still want more privacy. Plus more plants will buffer the wind and deaden the noise, it's very echoey being in the dip by the river with just bare walls to bounce sound about.

There is a sloping bank beyond the trellis, it slopes upwards from ours to theirs, and if I get nothing else done this month I must put some willow up there. Not only will it stabilise the bank, which is sliding down all the time, it should grow tall enough to at least break up the view down to us.

I'd like to put some more interesting shrubby things lower down, rosa rugosa, dogwoods maybe, courtesy of some local car parks and roundabouts in true Dave style! the slope is west facing and I can imagine the blaze of colour of changing leaves as the autumn sun goes down.

DawnW

ferretkeeper wrote: »

Today's going to spent at least in part getting our rental house tidied up. In an effort to reduce my work load at the farm's busy time we've decided to stop the holiday lets and just rent it out, so I half heartedly stuck an ad on a local FB group and I've been inundated!

Do take care in selecting a tenant via a FB page Ferretkeeper :eek:
At least with holiday lets they disappear after a week or two, but, speaking as an ex-landlord, regular tenants can be a bit of a minefield, especially as they would be living so close by (?) If you got a bad one, the damage and expense could be massive

Will you be doing credit checks, taking references etc? I had a local estate agent do this for mine (plus register the deposit with a government scheme etc), but the tenants were still a pain and I reckon overall it cost more than the money it raised, after tax. The chances of a landlord being able to keep the deposit to cover damage etc are pretty remote now, too. Some of the FB pages round here attract some right 'characters', especially the selling pages where you get all kinds of arguments and abuse :eek: I wouldn't want one of those as a tenant Mine were at least civilised to speak to!

No offence intended to tenants in general, but just as bad landlords exist, so do bad tenants, and the costs can really mount up, for example if you get someone who doesn't pay the rent and / or does a lot of damage, and the legal side can be expensive too.

Good luck with it xx

RAS

ferretkeeper

The renting and selling forum here is good if rowdy sometimes.

As a start read http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=41160642&postcount=12 and work from there.

You can get to keep the deposit for disrepair IF you have a proper inventory on entry. And you understand that deductions are prorata depending on the age of the damaged goods.

Most LLs and even agencies do not seem to have proper inventories and an amazing number of agents cannot correctly secure a deposit and send the prescribed information with the required timescale.

It is reasonable to ask the tenant to pay for either the incoming or outgoing inventory, not both, but you need to specify that on the contract.

ferretkeeper

Thanks for the tips :A I have been wary of doing this full stop, with agents or on my own, hence the holiday letting, but I just can't face running that again this year, and I'm under doctors orders to cut out the stress. I hope I won't be adding to it!

I have read up a lot over the years on renting, and again this past few weeks. I have found a standard AST agreement on line which pleasingly covered all the things I wanted included in a contract, like it being cleaned to professional standard, etc. I will take lots of photos and encourage new tenants to do the same.

You wouldn't believe some of the replies my ad got, one was barely legible, it wasn't english, text talk at best - is this the first impression they want to give a prospective landlord :eek: I didn't even reply.

Yes FB does have its downfalls, and I agree there are some horrendous people on there, but then there are people like us on there too I was just testing the water really although I was slightly concerned how many people replied straight away in the middle of the day, if they are meant to be working?! The people viewing today are the only ones that bothered to actually phone me, and she sounded nice and polite, if a little over keen, we shall see!

I'm being quite picky, I am a control freak after all I only want professional people, the wear and tear on a property where people are at home all day doesn't bear thinking about!

I'm just trying to find out how much I can legitimately ask for in terms of references, can I get a credit check done, could I ask them to do that themselves as it's free for them? apparently rent history may be going on credit files, I can't find out when.

I'm not trying to cut corners or save money by doing it all myself, quite the opposite, I think I'm more thorough and frankly have more invested in my property than any agent. Some of the complicated horror stories I have read usually involve incompetent agents and distant landlords, neither of which will apply here

RAS

fk

Read the thread above and the links therefrom. A lot of tenancy agremeents on line are rubbish.

You cannot get a credit history. All you can get is a check on the Registry Trust (CCJs) and the Insolvency Register (bankruptcy and IVAs). You can do these yourself for minimal cost.

You can also do free basic checks on www.192.com which will confirm where they lived IF they did not tick the privacy box.

Re professional people; job contracts, references from employers, bank statements. make sure they earn enough so that if the damage exceeds the deposit you can sue them. Google the company to see if they have announced redundancies.

Think about pets. You might have a house full but do you want the sort of impact that large dogs have on furniture and fittings?

COOLTRIKERCHICK

if vetting them yourself FK, be careful you don't get the'fur coat and no knicker brigade' meaning, all nice and pleaseant, but actually don't give a monkeys.


when we looked into the buy to let market, thinking there was no hope in us buying something with land.. I would have def gone with an agent re letting etc... and it might be something you should be looking into especially if you are stressed at mo... it sounds as though you have an emotional attachment to the house, which might be a bad thing from a business/renting point of view.. how many weeks was it let out last year? Is it worth just selling it, and pay off loans credit cards etc.. as saving is also like earning iyswim..


so then the stress of bills, and the stress of the other property will be gone..
easy to say I know, especially as it has taken us this long to get our butts into gear about this place lol
if you fancy a cuppa anytime give us a shout

ferretkeeper

Might just take you up on that cuppa CTC!

I was very precious about the house when it was just renovated, it's perfect, we both still love it and we will perhaps live there when we don't want to farm anymore. But until then, and for our retirement plan to work, we need someone else to pay the mortgage so for now I'm just making sure we protect our investment and don't end up out of pocket.

Selling really isn't an option, apart from there being very little profit after the renovation, the market is totally pants round here, really slow. I'm not sure how people can afford to rent but not get a mortgage, although it's probably down to deposits, the help to buy scheme hasn't done as well as expected.

Agents just don't float my boat...after all there's still no guarantee of hassle free renting using them, be different if there was. From reading others' stories it seems hard to get them to take responsibility for anything, and because there's very little recourse they don't care - they want a good percentage of the rent for doing less than sod all for LL or tenant. I'd rather cut out the middle men and have a good relationship with tenants, that's what's going to keep the stress down.

Thanks RAS for the top tips and that link on the forum, I've found a link within it to a company that does full identity and credit checks for about £50, saves me faffing about and they're quick. The contract I found is on either Shelter or a .gov website, or both, it was very comprehensive. Or I can go to Smiths and get one easy enough. I'll do a bit more reading and comparing before I commit.

Well the house is all ready, just time to see to animals, feed myself, then head out again, fingers crossed!

COOLTRIKERCHICK

if you want to get out of your current house with the land, surely you would sell it? and by the time you 'retire' there would be some sort of profit in it??


think we def need that cuppa, and put the world to right lol

Better_Days

FK the Housing forum is well worth browsing but it can be a bit 'wild west' at times with the responses to seemingly reasonable questions going OTT.

Still, I learnt a lot there which was very useful when we rented.

Love the kitty photos, all growed up kitties, and kitties with their tongue out - is your kitty still confused by the disappearing door Dave?

Well, the decorator is making progress. However, yesterday he took down some lining paper in the main bedroom and found this:



Mr BD went up into the loft and it appears that there is an intermittant leak in the chimney for the oil boiler and when it rains heavily or is windy and rainy in a particular direction rain runs down and finds its way down this wall.

The hole in the ceiling was made by Mr BD trying to find out what was going on.

Had a builder round today to look at it. Much sucking of teeth and 'cant say for sure' and 'could be a number of things'.....

In the end he quoted us £400 for a days work for two people to go up there, check the flashing, peel it back and re-seal as needed, put a cowl in case the rain is going down the chimney, and to 'build up' with cement round the top of the chimney. He will need to pay out £100 to hire a scaffold for the day, which is included in the price.

Does that seem reasonable to you?

He did say that it may turn out to be a bigger job, but he wont know until he gets up there 'close and personal'

alfie_1

betterdays.... if they do all that then thats a fair price. most builders work on 150-200 a day depending on skills. they are self employed and tax off that puts it down. for peace of mind and "dryness" its worth it ? it could be possible more work is needed than thought but better to find out sooner rather than a lot more £'s later ?