Thinking of renting our house out ... What do we need to know?

[bubbleandsqueaks]

We are thinking of renting our house out, what advice would you give to us?

The letting agent is coming out Wednesday to give us a valuation.

What sort of questions should I be asking?

What sort of condition would you expect the house to be in? It's recently been decorated but there a few holes in the walls, should we decorate? Do all the walls need to be magnolia or will the pale colours we have be ok? Carpets in the bedrooms are not greeat quality but would hire a carpet cleaner - would that be ok?

I know we need gas and electric checks - how much are they roughly?

How much roughly is landlord insurance?

Any other advice really appreciated!

Should also add that I'm a tenant myself- but have had enough experience of letting to warn you off agents.

They do nothing for their commission that you couldn't do yourself alot quicker!

Gay :..... you are not wrong. Nobs, thieves, liars, cheats.

bubbleandsqueaks if they don't provide receipts then we inspect the cooker and the carpets and if we feel that they are "acceptable" then we let it go. Our last tenants hired a carpet cleaner and did it themselves. They did a good job and it smelled fresh so we let it go.

Don't be put off by the horror stories, we have 5 rental properties, 3 in the north and two in the south. Bought our first buy to let 7 years ago and the worst we have had is people leaving the property filthy and slight accidental damage, like water damage to a kitchen drawer and chunks out of the lino in the kitchen.

There does seen to be a difference in the rental markets between north and south. The northern ones are all rented to families and have the same tenants from the day we took on the property. One lady and her children have been in one of our houses for 7 years, she treats it as her home, rent is paid weekly (she occassionaly misses a week, like at Christmas) she decorates as and when she pleases and generaly looks after the place herself, unless it is an expensive job.

Southern renters tend to be professional couples or house sharers and rarely stay longer than a year. Pay there rent on time, but report ever minor fault.

Its luck of the draw isn't it.

I'm not sure if we are brave enough to do it.

bubbleandsqueaks we've been tenants for many years as DHs job take us between North America and the UK.

We have always had a dog with us and always pass our inspections with flying colours and get our full deposit back (even after 4 years in 1 property) so I promise not all tenants are bad!

When we were looking to rent our UK home (ended up selling it) agencies in the Midlands wanted 12% commission.

From a tenants point of view UK agents are RUBBISH!! Don't respond with any speed to issues (even when raw sewerage was coming up through the patio - nice) and most definitely don't do the house inspections they say they will. We were supposed to have an inspection every 3 months, the longest we went was 18 months in between inspections. Then when the guy did come over, (he was very sweet) he just complimented me on my housekeeping, had a cup of tea and a bit of cake and left - didn't even bother going upstairs!

There is a new kind of service (well it might not be that new but I've not come across it before) called Upad or something. Basically you pay a company 70 or so quid and your house goes onto Right Move but then you manage it all after that. Seems like that could be a good option because I always use Right Move, just coz it's so convenient especially when I'm in the US/Canada looking for a UK property so can't buy local papers.

I rent our house out to a single Mum. I just make sure that I maintain a good relationship with her. I am very attentive if there are problems.

OnEdge I think you have hit the nail on the head there.
In all our years of renting out properties we have found that if you have a good relationship with your tenant the majority have respect for you and your property.

Thers is obviously the exception to the rule, like the family who went on holiday and left something important behind. DP went round there collected the item and posted recorded delivery, really not something a Landlord should do but we had a key. Tenants didn't wreck the place but it was certainly filthy when they left with some minor damage. They had broken the toilet seat in the cloakroom which apparently wasn't their fault as they had been using it as a buggy store ! Figure that one out !

I think it's like anything, you only here the horror stories. You never hear from the landlord that has rented his house out for 5 years and had no problems. We have been in rentals for some time and have only had two occasions to retain some of the deposit. The majority of renters are respectful.

Sorry, not nec true. We had a good relationship with ours right up until they refused to move out. And there were the others who stopped paying rent and left a trail of credit card and store debt leading to or property. Tenants are more than capable of selfishness and irresponsibility without a mean ol' landlord to help them on their way. OP don't be fooled: however nice you are, you can get shafted.

appletrees - agree. when we first started, we had a tennant with a real sob story, so my kind and trusting husband said she could pay the deposit in a couple of days. Of course we never saw that money or any rent - turned out she owed loads of people money. I had to take her to court in the end and get an attachment to work and then property order.

it didn't seem to make much difference to the tennant who put his fist through our doors either.

if they are bad tennants they will just abuse you, however you treat them. some people are scum and you see all sorts if you become a landlord

Appletrees I did say the "Majority"

dreamingofsun I am sorry you have had a bad experience, but you made a serious mistake and people like this rely on landlords like you. They would not have got a property from us. You can not listen to sob stories in renting properties. Referencies, deposits and credit checks are a must. Of course this is not a fail safe but it does cut down your risk, and renting property out is a risky business.

My previous tenant trashed the house. Ripped wallpapers, smeared nailvarnish on the radiators and the carpets, and she scribbled with spirit marker on EVERY single wall. She stole all the furniture. It cost us £16k to put it right. She left abruptly, being in arrears with electricity and gas (another grand for us to pay), and left no forwarding address.

The police said it wasnt criminal damage as it could be put right easily. Neither would the bother with the theft. They claimed it was breach of contract, rather than a crime. We would have to sue her for damages and rent owed. Needless to say, we did not bother, as we figured any judge would just come up with a payment plan of 50 pence per week, as she would claim she could not pay.

This was a family. Mum, dad, two children, and sometimes grandma staying. Good references (fake, of course).

The house was empty for 8 months while repairs were carrried out, costing us mortgage, electricity and insurance.

Think long and hard WHY you want to do this.

Do you need a certain amount of equity in your house to rent it out? What are the rules there?

quintessential - the gas and electric were in her name surely? so you wouldn't have been liable to pay it. we've had this with at least 1 ex tennant (who didn't leave a forwarding address) and weren't even pressured by the suppliers to cough up

i always phone references to check

this is one reason why i don't take HB. Because you cannot do an attachment to earnings order if you have to reclaim money for damage/rent owed

tametortie - don't think so, not sure. but your mortgage company has to be ok with it.

dreamingofsun, as the property owner yes. I was liable from her last meter reading. Which was a few months before she left. Also, I did not want to have the property blacklisted, as they threatened to do two things if the bills were not paid. 1. Cut gas and electrics, which meant it would not be possible for us to continue work to put the property right, and have problems being reconnected. 2. Install prepay meters for gas and electrics. This isnt something a landlord wants.....

You'd need to talk to your mortgage company again they may have changed rules or insist you change to a btl policy. Make sure you ahve a buffer to cover interim epriods bewteen tenancts as you will haveot pay all utilities and council tax for that time. Yu cna only offset the interest and maintenance expenses against the income for tax purposes plus any fees like agents. We used an agent (npt great ) and it was 15% full management, less for finding tenants only and one-off fee for inventory etc (we arranegd our own). Sharers were heavy on usage in areas like bathroom - wrecked 2 carpets and problems with condensation from showers.

quintessential - must be a different supplier to the one for our flat. circumstances sound exactly the same but there was no mention of anything you describe. Supplier just wrote debt off.

quintessential - thinking about it more, if the bill was in her name how can they say you are responsible for it? the contract would have between the tennant and the supplier, nothing to do with you

Don't be trusting. About anything. Sounds awful but this is your house. A friend of mine has to rent her house out and can't go over there that often, she hasn't the money to travel to see it very frequently. She has had one reasonable tenant, one annoying one who kept delaying payment (but did pay in the end), and one very nice woman who provided (fake) references, paid up regularly, and was a front for a criminal gang who set up a cannabis farm, utterly trashing the house in the process. Her tenant is now in prison.

Get references that you can go and physically visit. If they can't provide them, tough.

dreamingofsun, sometimes you have to weigh up the lesser of two evils. I could of course have refused to pay, let it go to court, have the electricity supply and the gas supply cut off, not let work progress and delay new tenants moving in, and having to re market the property as the new tenants would have to find somewhere else to live, causing further mortgage payments to come out, with no income, and no tenant to heat the place and pay council tax. All the while rightly claiming that the bill was not in my name. But don't you think this would have been a lot more expensive and caused a much greater inconvenience to me?

quintessential - i'm just glad the supplier for our flat just wrote the tennants debt off without any quibble.

Out of curiosity, who was the supplier?

sorry it was a few years ago, i've forgotten. there were no threats of anything nasty though.

This supplier was southern electric, nasty and unpleasant to deal with. Slippery like wet eels. Not even my managing agent who faxed over the contract, and the tenants email where she said she was leaving was of any help.

My home has been rented out for almost 3.5 years to the same tenants and it is fine. They are an elderly couple; the house is OK and the rent is paid.

My letting agent charges 15% per month, but I can't fault her - the inspections are done; things are fixed as soon as they go wrong and touch wood, this winter nothing has happened.