Landlaord moving from Estate Agent managed to self managing

scoops82

Hi


Just looking for a bit of advice.


I am a landlord, the property is 150-200 yards away from where I live and the tenant knows that. If there is ever an issue(there have only been 2) then he will contact me as I live so close and we do have a good tenant / landlord relationship.


The property is actually managed by an estate agents, and I pay a fee of 8.5% (Rent is £495pcm) for this and for a rent guarantee scheme plus a couple of inspections a year (being so close I actually see it more than they do) and they should also arrange GAS Safe.


What is a fair % to pay for a managed property, I do more inspections then they do and am first point of contact and not them so I see me using them as a purely rent collection service and rent guarantee service.


The tenant has a n AST agreement until December and I don't want to do anything that harms his agreement but am I allowed to leave the EA in this period and become self managing?


Sorry for the longish thread.
Thanks
S

Pixie5740

How would you no longer using a letting agent harm the tenant's tenancy? It's you the tenant has a contract with, not the letting agency.

You are the one who has a contract with the letting agency and you can terminate that contract and manage the property yourself. However, you need to read your contract with the letting agency to see what, if any, penalties there are for leaving.

Did you protect the deposit or did the letting agency? If the letting agency did then you would want to get it registered under your name.

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HappyMJ

scoops82 wrote: »

Hi


Just looking for a bit of advice.


I am a landlord, the property is 150-200 yards away from where I live and the tenant knows that. If there is ever an issue(there have only been 2) then he will contact me as I live so close and we do have a good tenant / landlord relationship.


The property is actually managed by an estate agents, and I pay a fee of 8.5% (Rent is £495pcm) for this and for a rent guarantee scheme plus a couple of inspections a year (being so close I actually see it more than they do) and they should also arrange GAS Safe.


What is a fair % to pay for a managed property, I do more inspections then they do and am first point of contact and not them so I see me using them as a purely rent collection service and rent guarantee service.


The tenant has a n AST agreement until December and I don't want to do anything that harms his agreement but am I allowed to leave the EA in this period and become self managing?


Sorry for the longish thread.
Thanks
S

Not much more than 10% +VAT for a fully managed service.

You're right though it's really just rent collection if the tenant communicates directly with you.

I personally don't want the tenants calling me so I use the letting agents to answer calls from them at any time of day or night. They also have a network of tradespeople that they can call on my behalf to get work done and the rates they charge are competitive. If the work is minor and labour only the work done is free.

If you're doing all that yourself then there's no need to be fully managed and you can cancel the agreement at any time. You usually have to give one months notice of you're outside of the fixed term of the agreement. You may have to pay a bit extra as the fixed agreement lasts until December. Ring them and negotiate.

LEJC

I'm a LL and went from fully managed to self manage a few years ago.

Fully managed was a 8% deal and TBH we felt we didnt get value for money for the charge so after 18 months went with a different agent who was able to offer a finders service for our properties for which we pay half the first months rent plus vat,

We live reasonably close to 2 of our properties and the third is a 30 min drive away
In terms of contact from the tenants we have given them a mobile and email contact details and have always advised them that we will will respond as soon as possible to and query....its worked well and our tenant who was with us with other agent says that actually now the property is self managed the communication is actually quicker than before.

Our letting agent is also very good and probably goes a little above and beyond what we would expect as they do hold sets of keys and will oversee the properties when we are on holiday.

The key to doing it yourself is forward planning...its easy to set diary notes for things like safety checks and inspections and if you set the boundries of how you will contact the tenant and how they should contact you then usually you wont find them banging on the door at 2am in the morning!

scoops82

Thanks pixie


The letting Agency should have registered the deposit.


So the fact he is signed up until December doesn't stop me leaving the ES now then? Does anyone know if 8.5% is high/low charge?


Thanks
S

LEJC

scoops82 wrote: »

Does anyone know if 8.5% is high/low charge?


Thanks
S

I have seen managed figures as high as 12% in some areas and for multiple properties as low as 6%....8 is not a bad deal but if you are able to do it yourself then its possibly quite a good saving to make.