Rent Guarantee Advice Needed

Noodles_33

Mr.Generous said:

Noodles_33 said:

Mr.Generous said:

Sounds like the tail wagging the dog. I appoint an agent to help find tenants. We (wife and I) make the choice. We do this by meeting all prospects at viewings, then from those who wish to proceed we tell agent who to progress with. The tenant checks come back with an interim report really fast - 1 or 2 working days, then a full report with references after about a week or so. Both of these are emailed to us. We do a few checks of our own - simply looking at social media and google maps to look at previous addresses. The agent fee's we pay are used to pay for the reports, so why wouldn't the reports we pay for, for our tenant, who is going to live in our property be seen by us?

Your agent is taking advantage of your inexperience to try and maintain a large degree of control. How mant extras have they convinced you to pay them for, and what are management charges like (if used)?

Be very selective when picking a tenant. DO NOT LET THE AGENT PICK SOMEONE.

Remember the agent would love a tenant who stayed 6 months and then moved on, thus earning them another fee. Think long term, you want a tenant who stays 2-3 years to reduce the impact of the agents fee's and reduce the administrative burden of changing gas, electris, water and council tax back to your name, then onto new tenant when the property changes tenant.

Think who is likely to meet YOUR criterea.

1. pay the rent

2. look after the property

3. cause no hassle with neighbors

4. get on with you (or agent if you wish)

So basically no idiots, chavs or pit bull breaders.

I’m paying them 10% to manage the property.

Hi, just to make it clear to you what your 10% of rent gets you. They will answer the phone and listen to tenant, they say "OK, we'll get in touch with landlord and see" and then ring you, or email you, maybe a day or two later.

Any repairs or work whatsoever and they will charge you - the going rate plus a fee for arranging it.

If they ask to withold some rent for emergency repairs then the cost will always be at the very top of the scale if they call someone in "an emergency".

Managing the property is what you do after they call you. All decisions are yours. legally you are responsible to make sure the property is safe including gas and electricity checks.

For landlord insurance I always look at compare landlord insurance and Simply Business, both competative quotes. Most policies require the property to be tenanted at commencement so arrange cover for tenant move in day.

BTW as tenant has been with agent before ask for a landlord reference, or better still, see if you can talk to them.

I did think about managing it myself as they always tend to use expensive contractors. They wanted £200 for the EICR which I decided to arrange myself for cheaper. 

I pulled out today as it looks like the agent didn’t properly credit check the tenants through a referencing agency. The agent even offered to be their guarantor which immediately rang alarm bells, sounds like they are friends with the tenants. I plan to list with another agent who uses Good Lord for their referencing checks, they send a copy to the landlord and even offer their own rental guarantee. 

I am worried about the insurance though as the original policy renews in about 2 weeks and it’s so difficult to coincide the move in date with the insurance start date. The flat above is owner occupied and the insurance for the whole building has to be joint, so the move in date really needs to be before renewal or on the same day. I do wish the insurers offered more leeway with the move in date.  

Noodles_33

theartfullodger said:

Yes, fire agent.

NB you'll realise that to be a lettings agent in England requires no qualifications, no training, no criminal records check.  The whole office could be staffed by prisoners on early release from GBH and financial fraud imprisonment....

Done any training in how to be a landlord or landlord/tenant law?  I've been a landlord for 25 years btw....

Best wishes to all 

Just to update I declined to sign the tenancy agreement today and indeed fired the agent. 

The whole thing sounded off, when I pulled out this morning, the agent became desperate and even offered to be their guarantor for 6 months! This is a well known agency in the area with 300+ 5 star Google reviews. The agent clearly knows the tenants and that they couldn’t pass the proper checks. 

I’m listing with another agent today who reference through Good Lord and send the landlord a full report. They even offer their own rent guarantee. 

I’ve been reading everything I can and doing lots of research. It’s only a short term thing for me at the moment as I couldn’t sell my property.