Landlord Checklist – Meeting Requirements
If you are a landlord or are considering becoming a landlord, it is important to understand your responsibilities and legal requirements.
It can be daunting when you first start reading about becoming a landlord so we have put together a useful guide to help get you started. With the right information and support, the lettings process can be smooth and stress free.
Save our handy guide below as a checklist for your rentals.
First Steps
- Mortgage/Lease – check you have permission to let from your mortgage lender or lease (if your property is leasehold). You will also need to check if there are any specific terms required for the tenancy.
- Insurance – ensure you have the correct landlord insurance for the property.
- Letting Agent – decide whether you will use an agency to rent your property. This can help to take away the stress of finding and managing your tenant but this will mean you will have to pay the agent a percentage of the rent.
Safety Regulations
- Gas Safety Certificate – due annually
- Electrical Installation Condition Report – due every 5 years
- Energy Performance Certificate – due every 10 years
- Smoke alarms – must be present on every habitable floor
- Carbon monoxide alarms
- Fire Risk Assessment
- Fire safe furniture – ensure your furniture conforms to fire safety standards
Questions to consider before marketing
- When is your property available from?
- Would you like to rent furnished or unfurnished?
- What would you like the initial marketing price to be? – a Letting Agent can help advise on this
- How many tenants is the property suitable for?
Getting Your Property Ready
- Clean – ensure your property is clean, this includes carpets and appliances.
- Garden – make sure the garden is neat and tidy
- Instruction manuals – leave all instructions manuals for appliances, heating etc
- Tested and working – ensure you have checked all appliances, lights, alarms etc are in working order
- Inventory – create a full inventory detailing everything in the property, including the condition. Ensure you take photos of everything, this helps to avoid tenant disputes if something is damaged or missing at the end of the tenancy.
Preparing The Tenancy
- Referencing – carry out referencing and checks on the new tenants and guarantors, this will include credit checks, employment history, right to rent check and rental history.
- Deposit – you can take up to 5 weeks’ rent for the security deposit. You must hold this in a government approved protection scheme, for the duration of the tenancy.
- Rental Documents – your tenant must be provided with the safety certificates, How To Rent Guide, deposit certificate, prescribed information and signed tenancy agreement.
During The Tenancy
- Inspections – it is recommended to inspect the property every 6 months to check for any issues. This is the best way to spot small maintenance issues to stop them becoming big issues. You must give your tenants 24 hours’ notice.
- Maintenance – Landlords have an obligation to keep the property in good repair and fix issues in a timely manner.
Failure to adhere to the above regulations can result in large fines and/or imprisonment so it is vital that you are confident with your responsibilities. If you have any doubts, consider instructing a Letting Agent to help ensure you are always meeting standards.
How can Casa Management help?
We would love to help with the rental of your property, we can do as much or as little as you would like.
We offer short and long term rentals, giving you the flexibility to do what works best for you.
With our Fully Managed service, we deal with everything from initial marketing to the day to day management and queries, taking away the stress from you. Alternatively, if you would prefer to take care of your landlord responsibilities, we offer a Tenant Find service to allow you to take care of your tenancy.
Click to here to read more about how we can help:
Short Term Services
We always do our upmost to make the sure information we provide is as accurate as can be. This information provided above has been sourced from the government website and, whist the rent reform bill is yet to be finalised or a date set for when it is due to come into action, is accurate as of the time of writing.