Back to School, Back to Basics – Part 2

In Part 1 of Back to School, Back to Basics we covered the pre-tenancy certifications and legalities of rental properties. Now in Part 2, we’re moving forward in the process and once a tenant has been secured.

Other Things to Consider…

• Apart from a robust tenancy agreement applicable to the type of rental you have agreed and an inventory check-in report, copies of the EPC, EICR and GSC will need to be issued to any tenant before the tenant move in along with the government’s How to Rent Guide. If not, this may affect your ability to apply for an eviction order if necessary in future.

• Landlords are also required to protect a tenant’s security deposit in a government-approved scheme, such as the DPS and also check your tenant’s right to rent in the UK. Documents need to be checked in-person or online via the government’s verification service.

• If you would like the reassurance of a rent guarantee or legal protection cover policy in case your tenants don’t pay rent or need to be evicted, your tenant will need to have passed referencing with a third party referencing company.

•  If you’re normally resident overseas or the property is owned by an overseas company, you should always confirm your tax requirements with HMRC. They have specific guidelines for non-resident landlords.

Finally, international student tenants travelling to the UK for their course often have to rent properties on the basis of photos and video viewings without having actually stepped foot in the front door – or you having met them in-person. It can be worthwhile to have a video chat to assess their suitability for your property and also make sure that the tenancy agreement reflects that the property has been taken ‘sight unseen’ to avoid being let down at the last minute.

If you would prefer to use the services of a qualified and experienced agency, book a quick call with us to discuss your rental property. We’d be delighted to help.

Back to School, Back to Basics – Part 1

It’s September and that has meant back to school for not only millions of children across the UK, but all the ‘big kids’ too - the students who are back at university to take up their places on undergrad and postgraduate courses.

It’s the first year of a true ‘back to normal’ end-of-summer/start of the school year cycle since Covid and demand has been soaring. We’ve even let a few properties in the final stages of renovation such that they’ll be occupied from Day 1!

With so many new move-ins happening, it’s a great time to go back over the basics and ask: What exactly do you need to do in order to let your property?

Pre-Rental Certifications & Legalities Required On Move-In

It’s a given that you’ll have made sure your rental property is fit for habitation and is maintained in good condition, but do you have the correction certifications in place?

To let a rental property, you need to make sure you have at least valid energy performance, electrical installation and gas safety certifications in place:

• Energy Performance Certificate (EPC): These have been around for 15+ years since Home Information Packs and the regulations in 2007. You need one to market your property! Certificates remain valid for 10 years and the minimum rating is currently E. Many have been done and many have since expired! In any case, you can check for your EPC on the government’s register.

• Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR): Valid for 5 years, these have been a legal requirement since April last year and are needed before a tenant moves into a rental property. Watch out, the initial inspection may uncover electrical faults that require further investigation or remedial works. Read more details here.

• Gas Safety Certification (GSC): Still in force and the longest standing certificate requirement – nearly 25 years for good reason. Conducted annually by a Gas Safe registered engineer (formerly CORGI), GSCs or CP12s are also a legal requirement if there is one or more gas appliance in the property.

You’ll also need to ensure smoke alarms & carbon monoxide detectors are in place and working and can read our recent post for more information on the recent changes to regulations.

If the rental property is a flat in a purpose-built building, there are additional fire safety regulations to consider and the most up-to-date information is always available on www.gov.uk.

You may also want to get a test for Legionnaires Disease and whilst PAT testing appliances isn’t legally required for private rentals, if a tenant is placed by a local housing association scheme, they may request this and both are good practice. 

Finally, always make sure to check if your rental property falls inside of a mandatory licensing area. These vary between boroughs in London, with differing costs and application processes.

Coming up next week - Back to Basics Part 2 with some other things to consider for tenants moving in… and if you would like to discuss any aspect of preparing your property for rental, book a quick call with us.

Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarms in Rental Properties

Fire Safety Regulation Updates

From 1st October 2022, the government’s newest round of fire safety legislation for rental properties comes into effect. With updates to the current laws having been in the works for some time, the updated regulations contain some subtle but significant changes for landlords with properties in the private rented sector.

The full legislation is available on the government’s website, though the guidance issued by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities covers the most common questions and situations.

The new regulations mean: 

• all landlords must ensure a carbon monoxide alarm is provided in any room used as living accommodation which contains a fixed combustion appliance (excluding gas cookers). 

• all landlords will be legally obligated to ensure smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms are repaired or replaced once they are informed and the alarms are found to be faulty. 

There is no transitional period after 1st October 2022 and any landlord found to be in breach could be fined up to £5,000.

If you have questions about what the new regulations mean for your rental property, feel free to book a quick call with us.

What Is a Search Agent?

Simply put, a search agent looks for a property on your behalf. If you are looking to move – be it buying or renting – the search agent can do all the legwork for you. That’s finding suitable properties, arranging viewings and brokering the negotiations on your behalf saving you heaps of time and energy. If you really trust them, they can even attend viewings on your behalf. Maplewood often takes on this responsibility and reports back with videos or video calls, saving you further time travelling to multiple appointments.

In the UK, this process is less familiar than elsewhere in the world. In North American sales transactions, for example, both vendor and buyer are usually represented by a qualified professional (real estate) agent who acts in their interest. This isn’t the case for rental transactions, but it does mean that Americans and Canadians fully understand the principle of someone working on their behalf in this way.

In the London rental market, it is not uncommon to encounter relocation agents (or ‘relo agents’ in agency lingo). They are normally retained and paid for by a company to look after relocations for members of staff and their families (often internationally). They have excellent little black books full of London agency contacts and can work proactively to get access to properties that aren’t yet on the market. This role is common particularly for those looking for a property in Prime Central London.

If the idea of having someone take care of all of the hassle of looking for a property sounds ridiculously appealing, you may be wondering why search agents aren’t more common in the UK. The reason for this comes down to – perhaps unsurprisingly – money.

In Prime Central London, a search agent can undertake their work on the basis that they are paid a portion of the fee earned by the seller’s/landlord’s agent (i.e. the agent listing the property). The prices of Central London properties produce margins that allow for this and with both agents retaining a healthy fee. Outside of Central London (even just south of the river) the commission on offer isn’t regarded as sufficient to be split between two agencies. So a search agent must pass their fee directly to their client (the buyer/tenant) instead.

In an environment where much emphasis has been put on eliminating fees for tenants, lots of those people looking to relocate would rather take on the search themselves than pay a fee for someone else to find them a place to live, despite the valuable time-saving, negotiating experience and contacts the search agent may have.

The tide is changing however and – particularly in a hot rental market – it can be a difficult and logistical nightmare to find a property if you’re a busy professional. Hiring Maplewood to conduct a four-week rental property search for you starts at £1500+VAT. We jointly determine your search parameters, source potential properties, arrange and attend viewings for/with you and advise on the negotiations right through to your move-in day. Imagine that: a quick, low-stress and proven solution to finding your next rental home.

You can find more information about our property search service here or book a call with us to have a chat about your dream home.

Top Tips for Spot On Property Photography

Property photos are far and away the most important asset in marketing a property in both the sales and lettings markets. Good images show a property truthfully and also in the best possible light (pun intended). Whilst post-production can tweak/magic/erase a few wrinkles (like turning a wintery grey sky blue or even vamoosing a neighbour’s unsightly bin), it is far simpler to start with good images than to try to correct them after the fact. And the uncomfortable truth is that with only one chance to make a first impression, you don’t want to give the people viewing your property any reason to swipe left - and they can be a fickle crowd. 

To give your place the best chance to truly shine in the photos, bear these top tips in mind…

•   Put the toilet seat down: Toilets come with seats for a reason - so that they can be put down in property photographs! Joking aside, this is probably the most common faux-pas in property photos and it is such a quick and easy fix. Distracting to some buyers and downright off-putting to others, having a toilet seat up automatically makes your photos look less polished. By putting the seat down, you’re not triggering those who are bothered by it and those who don’t care will never even notice. #win-win

•   No selfies please: Property photos are not the place to play Where’s Wally - as much as we love a good round of ‘spot the photographer’ in reflective surfaces. Particularly in bathrooms, it can be a challenge to position a camera to capture the room without also capturing the camera - and the photographer. Good property photographers are experienced in their camera placement and have software to magically erase any stray body parts, if necessary.

•   Spruce me up: We’ve shared previously about the amazing results that an interior designer or home stylist can produce, however you need not commit to a total overhaul. Give your home a critical eye. Are there obvious areas where a pot of paint would do a world of good? Can you employ some pops of colour through cushions or a decorative throw to inject some life and catch focus? Plants are a quick and easy way to make spaces more attractive and are very on trend.

•   Take a knee: Another very common feature in property photography is the downward sloping angle. Resulting from taking photos from too high an angle or even from a top corner of a room in order to capture as much as possible, it results in odd-looking images that aren’t pleasing to the eye. It’s far better to take more than one image instead to capture the entirety of a space.

With just a few tweaks, these images could show off the property to much better effect.

•   Lighting, lighting, lighting: It cannot be overstated that lighting is critical in showing your property to best advantage - so much so that at Maplewood we deliberately schedule photography sessions for brighter days! Internal lighting is so often from overhead sources that can add odd shadows and unflattering colouration. Over-saturated photos, where too much light occurs, can wash out images or make it difficult to see details - and beware images that are overly filtered in post-production to cover up dark rooms! As much as possible, ensure that natural lighting is finding a way into your rooms and pay attention to window dressings.

•   Beware room stretch: Professional property photographers have wonderful equipment that allows them to capture far more of the edges of a space than a conventional lens. Beware of images that take this to the extreme though - some agents use photographers who use ‘fish eye lens’ or panoramic views such that the rooms wind up looking wonderfully large but oddly stretched. The result is that on viewings, potential tenants and buyers are expecting much roomier spaces than exist in reality - a waste of everyone’s time. 

•   If DIY’ing it: Don’t – use a recommended estate agency! We pick up the cost for all photos and floor plans and many agents will too. If you must, use a tripod. This will only set you back around £20 but is worth the investment. With cameras in phones now being so advanced, it can be tempting to give it a go yourself. A tripod will ensure a clearer image and you can be more consistent in the angle and framing to ensure a consistent look. Don’t forget the basics though. Make sure your lens is thoroughly clean and that you’re shooting sufficiently high resolution to allow for clear images in both web and print marketing materials. 

 •   De-clutter: It should go without saying that your property should be sparklingly clean before a photographer comes in (with the beds also made, properly), so our top tip is to Marie Kondo your heart out. Purge your rooms of the stuff of life before a photographer comes in. And we do mean ruthlessly. Try to see your rooms as they will show up on an image the size of your phone screen. Lots of ‘stuff’ makes it hard for the eye to settle and to properly assess the property rather than the stuff. The photos are an invitation to visit in person. Your stuff can stop people from taking you up on this. It is far better for a property to err on the side of too empty rather than over cluttered.

•   Oh and Landscape… not Portrait! Simple.

And there you have it! Nine top tips that will have your property photos looking spot on. For more information on our services, don’t hesitate to get in touch!