To start a fire?

Why are so many people on here not reading OPs posts?

I’m a landlord, I know what I’m doing and I’ve made no profit in 17 years!! Please do also make sure your EPC is valid and you have an EICR for the property.

I became a landlord by accident OP, 20+ years ago, so pretty experienced now.

You've familiarised yourself with the new regulations, superb

Make sure to put the deposit in a protected scheme
Have an EICR carried out every 5 years or between tenants
Have PAT testing done annually (but its better just to not supply portable appliances)
Get the boiler serviced annually and a Gas Safe / Oftec certificate
Ensure your smoke detectors are up to spec and working.

Its far better to appoint a managing agent to look after it all.

If you plan to sell up, pay particular attention to the notice periods for an eviction under section 8 to sell, and the restriction on not re-letting after if no sale comes through.

Agree on selling up if you can - it's a complete (& expensive) minefield for LLs now.
But in the meantime, also agree on getting to grips with ALL your LL obligations, or consider an agent to manage it for you, or even help you to know what all you need to do.
SO glad we sold up 18 months ago - this thread giving me so much stress.

I mean this in this nicest way but I wish you were my landlord 😂🙈 no but seriously I’ve always paid council tax on any property I’ve rented! Glad you’re sorted now x

The council tax needs to be paid, and you said you don't want your tenants paying extra. I'm confused af.. who is going to pay for it then?

Read. The. Thread.

Of course you have choices. You can sell

If you insist on continuing to be a LL please make sure you know what your responsibilities are. Fire, PAT etc

Also this law has been spoken about for a year, it might just be coming into effect but you should be clued up. It involves loads of things including a new landlord regiester you need to pay for.

If OPs tenants are moving in soon then presumably they’ve already signed the contract so OP won’t be able to increase the rent now.

OP when you say you'll call the council and tell them its tenanted with bills included are you saying the tenants bills are included in whatever rent you are charging them?

Because if you are then you'll have to pay the council tax. But I don't understand why you'd do that - the tenants should be setting up their own accounts with the electricity/gas/water/council and paying directly once they've moved in.

I really hope I've misunderstood you!

You don't have a choice to pass it or some of it to your tenants OP. Or you'll have to sell.

Your tenants would probably prefer to stump up a bit more rather than somewhere else to live tbh.

Yes
yes
last October
yes

seriously, as a landlord you have a lot of legal
responsibilities that you need to take seriously.

My DH rents out a house and we’ve had to spend a lot making sure that it meets the regulations.

She said it’s been on the market 8 months, the estate agent can’t force someone to buy it.

Just caught up properly with thread so deleting my very out of date response!

Then wtf was the point of this post your condatricting yourself!

I have read your posts.

You say that both that you aren't willing to charge tenants above cost and that you won't sell below what you paid. You have to do one of these things. It's clearly an awful situation, so either cut your losses and sell, or make the most of a bad deal and charge a commercial rent.

Yes you can sell it? Anyone can sell their property they own if they wish. All you have to do is get down the estate agents 😊 job done.

Healthy savings pot? Yet you're whinging about money 😂😂😂😂 absolute pointless thread.

Then sell your rented out house then?

Have you researched the legal obligations of being a landlord properly?

off the top of my head…..

Are you protecting the new tennants’ deposit in the correct way? Have you got the gas safety certificate? Does the property meet all of the relevant fire regulations? If it has a mortgage, is it a buy to let? What about insurance?

Good luck with it all OP.
I think tone is sometimes brusque here.
Landlords do get a hard time on here too.
If you cannot sell atm then renting out makes sense. But I did find that an agent just made it so much easier especially with new legislations.
I assume your April tenants have signed up.
If not, I'd advise getting an agent to take the load off. They can advertise it at an increased rent for the area, the going rate but at least: your current rent plus their fee plus VAT and if possible, a bit more on top for contingencies.
Wish you well x

Unfortunately, you may need to reverse and sell the tenanted one. Renting for cost is all very well and moral but how much should you really be getting and are you basically doing the benevolent landlord thing/have good tenants? Took my DH a while and some hard facts from me about how much we should be charging for him to agree to raise the rent.

Bless you, it sounds like you're having a tough time, but if you don't get things in order you could leave yourself wide open to fines and all sorts.

You will have to complete a tax return to HMRC to account for rental income, so keep records of anything you spend on the property.

Raising the rent is not an 'arsehole' thing to do, it's sensible to periodically ensure you're getting market rent and are not short changing yourself. You're not running a charity! If you want to be nice you can give extra notice and keep it on the low side of average - but why do this if you can't afford to eat, yourself?

I would really recommend getting an agent to handle it all for you - it really does take the stress away. They'll take a fee from the rent before it's paid to you.

Do make sure you have adequate landlord insurance.

Best of luck.