- Time, Time, Time!
Meet Aviah; Aviah is a self-managing Landlord in Newark. Aviah bought a small property in her early twenties, which her partner moved into with her. In 2015, Aviah fell pregnant with their first baby and they decided to move to a larger house in the same area. Aviah saw a mortgage advisor and decided that she would keep her first property and rent this out. Aviah and Patrick now have three young children, Aviah works part time and Patrick works full time. Aviah is finding the problems with the tenants and maintenance issues draining; she regularly receives messages late in an evening once the tenant returns home from work and has time to report maintenance issues. Aviah wants to keep the tenant happy and will often arrange for the maintenance work to be completed as soon as possible, meaning that Aviah can sometimes spend her entire weekend sorting out the problems. Aviah resents this time she loses with her family and has now decided to employ the services of a letting agent to manage the property for her and save her precious time.
2. Property Inspections
Meet Alex; Alex is a self-managing Landlord in Grantham. Alex inherited the property when his Grandparents sadly passed away in 2010 and he has been fortunate enough to have the same tenant in the property ever since. When Alex first moved the tenant into the property it all ran smoothly, but, as the property has sentimental value, he was always concerned that the property wouldn’t be cared for like his grandparents would care for it. However, Alex liked the tenant and didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable with frequent property inspections. The property was not inspected for 8 years, Alex barely spoke to the tenant, other than for the occasional maintenance issue. In 2018 the tenant asked Alex if she could see him; Alex went to the property and was shocked and disappointed to see the level of disrepair the property has fallen into; there were leaks that hadn’t been fixed, resulting in rotten floorboards; one of the windows was cracked with no apparent reason for this; the carpets had numerous cigarette burns in and the walls were yellow from cigarette smoke. There was also a substantial mould issue in most rooms!
Alex decided to use a letting agent to manage the property after this; he needed the reassurance the property was being inspected regularly, as he realised that if the property had been inspected, these issues would have been seen and resolved quicker, meaning less expense for him.
3. Friendship
Meet Sophie; Sophie is a self-managing Landlord in Cotgrave. Sophie was in a fortunate financial position to be able to purchase a second property to rent out in 2019. Sophie was immediately approached by her best friend’s brother, Ralph, to rent the property. Ralph had a full time job, a long term partner and a small dog; Sophie was happy to let Ralph rent the property and did not complete any checks or references on Ralph; she had known him since he was 3 years old, after all! Four months into the tenancy, Ralph started pestering Sophie for different items for the property; he requested new blinds for the bedroom (Ralph’s dog had chewed the first pair!), a new carpet in the living room (a glass of wine had been spilt during a house party) and a shed for the back garden as he had nowhere to keep his lawn mower. Sophie knew it was not her responsibility, as a Landlord, to provide these items, however, as Ralph was a friend, she felt too uncomfortable to say no! Sophie is now considering selling the property as she is struggling to pay the mortgage on the property because of all the costs relating to the maintenance issues.
4. Rental Payments
Meet Tim; Tim is a self-managing Landlord in Nottinghamshire. Tim owns five rental properties and usually uses a Letting Agent for a “Tenant Find Only” service; Tim knows this means the tenants’ have had the appropriate checks, can legally rent in the UK and can afford to rent the property; it limits the risk of something going wrong. Tim has had good tenants in his properties, and they have all paid their rent on time. However, three months ago Wendy (one of those tenants) lost her job and has stopped paying her rent. Tim, having never had this happen before, has no idea what to do; he still needs to pay his mortgage on the property. Wendy is not answering the phone and Tim is not sure how to serve notice. Tim knows legal advice can be expensive and wishes he had the support of a letting agent to advise him through the next few months!
5. A Legislative Headache!
Meet Aram; Aram is a self-managing Landlord in Newark. Aram inherited a substantial amount of money when his father sadly passed away in 2017 and he decided to invest in property. Aram has two properties in the Newark area and is fortunate to have long term tenants in both properties. Aram’s friend recently set up her own Lettings Agency and has been trying to talk Aram into passing the properties over to her to manage for him. Aram scoffed at this; why would he need an Agent when he could manage the properties himself? His friend went on to explain legislative updates and asked Aram when certain legal requirements had been undertaken on his rental properties. Aram was not aware of some of the legalities and if it wasn’t for his friend giving him this advice, he would’ve been at serious risk of hefty fines, or even imprisonment! Aram has now decided to pass the properties over to a letting agent to manage on his behalf, because, as he said, the management fees are much less than the fines could be!
6. Blurred Boundaries
Meet Louise; Louise is a self-managing Landlord in Bingham. Louise is in negative equity and is not in a position to sell her property, so she is living in a larger rental property whilst renting her own property to a lovely gentleman called Eric. Eric moved in to the one bedroomed flat in early 2020 and due to living alone, he has found it very lonely, he will often ring Louise with problems that don’t exist, just so he has somebody to chat to. Louise feels sorry for Eric and does not like to ignore his calls or cut the phone call short, but this means that she can spend up to 5 hours a week on the phone to Eric! Living in the same village as Eric means Louise will sometimes bump into him in the local shops, Louise sometimes feels as though she has to visit him regularly to check he is okay and has taken on the role of a support worker, rather than a Landlord. Louise never believed this would be an issue; she is a manager at work and understands the importance of boundaries, she cannot remember when the boundary was overstepped with Eric. Louise is getting married next year and plans to start a family; she is worried that Eric will still expect the regular contact and needs to find a way to cut the contact with Eric without offending or hurting him; her friend has advised her to speak to a letting agent, who would be able to speak to Eric, establish those boundaries and even point him in the right direction of services which can help him!
7. Landlord Duties
Meet Phil; Phil is a self-managing Landlord in Bottesford. Phil used the money from his divorce to purchase a rental property. Phil rents the property to a young family, the mother; Leah, emailed Phil recently to ask if they could have a puppy, Phil said no and Leah said this was discrimination. This is one instance of many where Leah has disagreed with Phil’s decision and said he was discriminating and / or being unfair. Phil is unaware of discrimination laws and if he is, in fact, in breach of his contract as a Landlord. Phil has no idea who to ask and after nights spent searching the internet for answers, he has decided to use the services of a letting agent, to prevent him having to have any more awkward conversations!
8. Money, Money, Money!
Meet Jing; Jing is a self-managing Landlord in Grantham. Jing re-mortgaged her home to enable her to purchase a buy to let property. Jing has spent a lot of time on the telephone to her tenants (a couple with a young child) and is often asked to visit them to discuss issues. Jing decided to keep a note of all the hours she was spending dealing with property related matters; one month this added up to eleven hours! Jing decided that to employ the services of a letting agent would save her this time and, in fact, the 10-12% of the rental income would mean that the letting agent would actually be getting paid below minimum wage for the hours needed to be spent on managing her property!
9. Opportunity To Grow
Meet Geoff; Geoff is a self-managing Landlord from Nottinghamshire. Geoff took early retirement from his engineering job so he could concentrate on what he loved; building his property portfolio! Geoff is 58 years of age and him and his son will purchase properties to renovate and then rent them once complete. Geoff will manage the properties himself, but lately has been finding that as his portfolio is growing, he doesn’t have the time to enjoy the bits he loves (property renovation) as he is spending too much time dealing with tenant queries. Geoff has decided to use a letting agent to manage his properties, so he can concentrate on the tasks he continues to love!
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