Inherited flat, rent or sell?

[Anycrispsleft]

My mum died a couple of months ago, and I inherited her house. I'm trying to decide whether to sell it or let it out.

The house itself needs a lot of doing up - the boiler is nearly 20 years old, the windows over 30 and they're all blown, and there are a bunch of other bits and pieces that need fixing. Plus wired in smoke alarms, EPC and the other bits and pieces that are required by law. I live abroad so organising all that is not easy - I spoke to an estate agent (the only one in the area who does letting) and they said they could help with all that so maybe that would be OK. It would likely be a good investment - about 6% after letting agent's fees - so maybe it's worth it.

On the other hand... my mum's downstairs neighbour is a bit much. She drinks a lot and her husband is a big scary looking bloke who slams the doors. Plus it would open the door to staying in touch with my relatives who are still in the area, and I had been hoping that with the death of my mother I might be able to just slowly drop out of everybody's memory. With me still owning the flat there would still be loads to discuss, why did I choose those windows, they don't approve of the new tenants etc, that's a lot of money they'reasking in rent etc. The family are all pretty friendly to me face to face but - there's no nice way to say this - my mother was a liar and a fantasist and made up loads of rubbish about me to the point where people who knew about me through her just automatically think I'm a liar because of all the conflicting stuff they've already been told about me. It would be nice to just walk away from it all.

I don't really know what to do. I have a bit of time because the grant of probate is not through yet, but I need to make a decision soon and I just dread dealing with any of it.

Sell it.

You will have to spend quite a bit of money in making the flat rentable, getting all the safety certificates and so on.

Once you have tenants in if you are abroad you will totally rely on the agents to manage the property and have no control of how much will be spent on repairs when something goes wrong in the flat. Plus you will have the worry of potentially having tenants who might not pay the rent, trash the place, refuse to leave and so on.

I would sell it. Put it on the market at a reasonable price that reflects the fact that the property needs work and you will be fine.

@Mindymomo
''They also expect anything broken to be fixed immediately''

Well yes, that's a normal expectation isn't it? or do you expect people to pay rent but live with things like broken showers, central heating and so on for days? it is a landlord's responsibility to maintain properties and fix things in a timely fashion...

Being a landlord in the same town is very different to being a landlord away and having a managing agent. I think if you are in the same are you can make it work but becoming so on a home that may hold memories is hard and even harder if you aren’t around.

In your position I’d be inclined to improve things before probate and then sell once you have the grant of probate. Then if you still want to be a landlord you can do so with the cash near where you live.

It doesn’t sound like you’re in a good position to be a decent landlord (the repairs, your location) Definitely sell.

I will never be a landlord again.
The stress l had renting out my 2 bed house along the road from where l live now was just not worth the pittance l made.
I know in general landlords aren't liked but l was a fair and good one - but was very unlucky with tenants

Sell.