What I would like to tell tenants

 Please send a whatsapp when you have paid the monthly rent. Or explain delay eg, Travelling. Will pay tomorrow.

FORWARDING ADDRESS For Landlord

Give us a forwarding address for your post.

Keep items addressed to us or previous tenants, and send up a photo of letter and any return address, so we can update the sender and prevent further items being sent.

CHANGE OF ADDRESS For banks, catalogues, doctors, services

Remember to change of Address 

Alphabetically: 

A address forwarding for mail (parcel and post delivery), airlines, annual conference reminder

B

banks, book clubs and libraries

C 

catalogue companies, clubs, credit cards - loyalty cards. council tax, country clubs

D

dentists, doctors, 

E

electricity suppliers, exam boards sending exam results and certificates

F food suppliers - restaurants, supermarkets, shops, 

G

garage, gas, gym membership  

H

hospital.

I

Identity card for work, Income tax, insurance companies for home and contents and car, holiday, life, travel

K

Kids babysitter, catalogues, school, shops, 

Listing at work for personnel

MN

O

Online suppliers who deliver such as Amazon, ebay, hybrid clubs to tell them you can only attend online, in new time zones

P

Passport and identity card and train pass, Pet sitters, holiday homes, suppliers, vet, pension schemes

Q

R

Restaurants

S

Schools, Schoolfriends, Shares, Shops and department stores

T

Travel passes, 

U

V

Visa applications

Work colleagues

X

Y

Youth clubs, scouts

Zoo membership

Cleaning Oven

Clean your oven = after it has cooled! - ideally same day or before evening, at least monthly, definitely before the 3 monthly inspection of the flat. For your own safety, clear oil and fat off the case, walls, back, roof and door - our son as a student was in a shared flat where nobody cleaned the oven and it caught fire. The fire brigade warned that it acts like a candle or bbq eventually catching fire with heat or spark if lots of grease is on the walls or the trays inside .

We might be happy for you to leave odd items you need to the last moment but can't pack, such as soap and tissues, a kitchen broom, unopened coffee pack. Please check with us.

If leaving any item such as milk in the fridge be sure to tell us so it does not get left and go off.

Remember to empty the washing machine and microwave.

If you break anything tell us.

Better to pay a small amount ror replacement than have the inventory people refuse to sign off your tenancy so that the entire deposit is kept until the matter is resolved. 

Some inventory people make a charge for a return visit if the doorkeys are not all returned.

Rats - attracting and preventing

 

Rats And House

A tenants' extended family used to eat on the floor, leaving crumbs. Rats got in. Rats ate the wiring of the white goods. 

If you have a garden, they say you are never more than twelve feet from a rat. Any hole around pipework can let them into the building so they can race along and find kitchens. Rats can't read supermarket warnings. Wring has no warming, not suitable for rats. 

Rats & Car Wiring

Rats ate the wiring on our car parked on the front drive. They are out there. That's why restaurants have to cover food left out overnight. No good leaving food in an open top box in your garage. Or an open top box inside a restaurant annexe.

Also, the rat catcher from the council advised, keep fruit bowls covered, or put fruit in a fridge or cupboard overnight. Even fruit on a table, with a nearby chair as a step is an invitation to a rat. Put the fruit on a high shelf. And cover it. 

Websites on Rats

https://uat.barnet.gov.uk/environmental-problems/pest-control/barnet-pest-control-services

https://www.rentokil.co.uk/

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Letting agent contracts

Find A Tenant Only

 Some letting agents have options for find a tenant only, which is usually a one off payment of roughly the one month's first rental. This means that you might have a void period of one month, no income.

Council Tax

But if the flat is furnished, and in some areas whether or not it is furnished, you pay the occupant's council tax (which covers rubbish collection and the right to send your children to a local school if this is your main home for five days a week). 

Rent Management

You might see another tick box for rent management - meaning they collect the rent, taking a proportion, instead of charging you the whole fee at the start to cover their advertising, any professional photography, their time and their own office and rent overheads, and their business profit.  the fee for the rent collection might cover insurance against loss of rent. 

Why Insure

Why would you lose rent? if the tenant chooses to move out, loses their job, gets transferred overseas, an elderly or sick tenant died, disappears, gets murdered, sent to prison, or you evict them because of the damage or nuisance to other tenants, or illegal activities on your premises. 

A friend of mine found the tenant's wife dead on the sofa and the tenant disappeared. Her sofa was removed as evidence by the police. The flat was behind yellow tape, out of bounds, during a year long investigation, with never any indication of when it would become available and could be advertised for rent again.

I heard of another case where 

White Goods And Furniture & Furnishings Last How Long? Beware unexpected humans & animals

White goods nowadays can be silvery stainless steel, or traditional white. What are they? Fridges, fridge freezers.  

If a couple or a widow live in a house, the white goods can last up to twenty years. If the tenants are away travelling a lot, white goods can last longer.

 If a family with three children move in, have another two children, the white goods last half as long. So do the carpet, and hinges on doors, runners on drawers.

One tenant was visited daily by her two sisters. One sister's family of four live round the corner in a one bed flat with two sleeping in the lounge. So they washed their sheets and clothes daily in the bigger flat. , 

When large numbers of both residents and visitors use the white goods, the new white goods such as the washing machine don't last more than a day after the one or two year guarantee expires. 

Rats And Wiring

Then the tenants' extended family used to eat on the floor, leaving crumbs. Rats got in. Rats ate the wiring of the white goods. 

If you have a garden, they say you are never more than twelve feet from a rat. Any hole around pipework can let them into the building so they can race along and find kitchens. Rats can't read supermarket warnings. Wring has no warming, not suitable for rats. 

Rats ate the wiring on our car parked on the front drive. They are out there. That's why restaurants have to cover food left out overnight. No good leaving food in an open top box in your garage. Or an open top box inside a restaurant annexe.

Also, the rat catcher from the council advised, keep fruit bowls covered, or put fruit in a fridge or cupboard overnight. Even fruit on a table, with a nearby chair as a step is an invitation to a rat. Put the fruit on a high shelf. And cover it. 

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Selective licensing? Who needs it?

 Selective licensing

I spoke to a property letting agent in Wembley and he said I might need to supply his company with a record of my Selective License before he could rent out a property, as this was required in his area of Brent.

First I checked out Brent and selective licensing. In addition to the license for running a House of Multiple Occupancy, which involves lockable doors for each family or tenant, and fire alarms, and fire escapes. The selective license selects others, such as families and single tenants. 

The cost is a whopping £650, every year. Add that to the maintenance cost for a block of flats, covering the gardening, outside window cleaning, roof and gutter repair, corridor upgrading, lift maintenance, in some blocks a porter. 

Plus the three figure sum paid monthly to the letting company managing agent, for a year, or up to six years, or forever, or one month's rent taken for finding you a tenant. Furnishings and furniture must be fireproof, with certification.

I checked and Hendon is not in Brent but in Barnet. A sigh of relief. One less piece of paperwork. Once less stress, worry, time consuming activity. One less delay in letting. One less visit, inspection, involving inconveniencing the current tenant, and myself. One less extra unexpected cost.

Given the cost, it seems to me the government inspection should be like the MOT for a car done by garages. They check the premises. If no smoke alarm they fit one and bill you - or they build the cost of smoke alarms into the cost, buying in bulk, which means either a saving and profit to them, or saving of cost and time for you. A bit like the NHS sending you home from hospital and sending a physiotherapist to fit a grab brail on the bath. Cheaper than dealing with medical emergencies later. Part of the service to the safety of the public.

 An alternative would be to build in the cost of supplying a smoke alarm and/or fire extinguisher. Then offering a reduction if none is needed.

Useful websites

Find your local council - GOV.UK

Selective licensing map | Brent Council

Recording Smoke Alarms, Fire alarms etc

Keeping Records For Landlords & Tenants

It is helpful to have either a box file with all information, guarantees filed in date order with a list by subject at the front, an A4 book with lists of purchases, again with an index at the front. Either list everything by date, with a subject index to pages at the front. and a yearly list for each property, or list everything by subject, eg insurances, alarms, with purchase and expiry dates.

 Information 

I did a search https://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&type=E210GB885G0&p=detectors+for+property

I found an nrla website

NRLA stands for National Residential Landlords Association

https://www.nrla.org.uk/resources/looking-after-your-property/smoke-and-carbon-monoxide-requirements