First Time Landlord? – Find Here The Starter Checklist

Being a landlord for the first time can make you crazy. There are a whole lot of things to be done. From finishing legal obligation, property maintenance and even marketing, you will just end up doing lots of stuff. As a landlord, you need to keep a check on everything, be it the building or the contents. When given on rent these things have a higher chance of damage and thus, you need to make sure that the damage is minimised.

Landlords should take care of the following:

The safety of the tenants: Landlords need to keep an eye on the safety of their tenants. Be it a smoke alarm or a gas certificate, you need to arrange it in the property. Failure to arrange these basic safety measures may lead to legal action and even imprisonment.

Arrange for an EPC: Make sure that your home is energy efficient. You need to provide and Energy Performance Certificate to the tenant on the day they move in. According to UK law, even your advertisement should include an EPC rating. The EPC should be provided to every new tenant to make them aware that the home is an energy efficient place.

Market the property well: These days, nearly 55% of people check properties online. You need to understand this and create a good advertising property for your ‘to let’ home. Create a web friendly advertisement as well as banners to address crowds from all walks of life.

Check the legalities of the tenant: As of 1 Feb 2016, every landlord should check whether the tenant is eligible to stay on rent in the UK or not. Enquire about their immigration status, UK passport, identity cards, permanent residence cards and other legitimate documents including travel documents. Mind well, if you don’t carry out these checks then there could be a fine up to £3,000 per tenant.

Reference checks are a must: To reduce the risk of letting a property to the wrong people, you should do reference checks on your tenants. Collect basic information and proofs of the tenant’s employment details, address, bank statements and references from their previous landlords. Just know a little more about the one whom you are going to let your property.

Next step is preparing a tenancy agreement: A legal document containing the basic information of the tenant, landlord and property is termed as Assured Shorthand Tenancy. Other details of AST are the dates and duration of tenancy, breakdown of payments and notice periods in case of termination of tenancy by any of the sides. For this, you can get samples and templates from letting agents or rental sector firms.

Secure the tenant’s deposit: As per law, the landlord has to keep the tenant’s deposit into a government backed tenancy deposit schemes within 30 days. Three most popular schemes are MyDeposits, Tenancy Deposit Scheme and Deposit Protection Service.

Create an inventory: Get help from an inventory clerk to create an inventory of things the tenant would be accountable for. The inventory needs to be created before and after tenancy to make sure that things everything is received back without any damage or loss.

Clean up and landlord insurance: Yes! Create a tidy place for the tenant. This creates a good impression and acts as a goodwill gesture on your part. The last thing is to get a landlord insurance to secure the property you gave for tenancy. Through this insurance, you can ensure that the building, its fixtures and other contents would remain safe. If not then you are eligible to get a pay-out for any kind of loss.

The above mentioned things are bare necessities for a first time landlord. By following this list, you can easily let the property for rent without going wrong at any stage. For further details on landlord insurance, contact FreePriceCompare.com on 0203 4757 476.

Written by

Kevin Patterson