Category Archives: Rent

Is your property winter ready?

 
As a landlord, it is your responsibility to make sure that your properties and tenants are winter ready. Keeping on top of essential maintenance is vital and keeps tenants happy.
Prepare

Communicate – Talk to your tenants. Ask if there are any issues that they are concerned by. Make sure that all emergency contacts are up to date.
Set up and emergency plan – A ring binder in for every binder full of emergency telephone numbers, helpful advice, where the stopcock/fusebox/gas and electricity meters are. All useful to […]

How to Avoid Property Voids

 
It’s a New Year which means new resolutions, new goals and big plans for the year to come. For many people the New Year will continue the same as the last but for others there may be some hurdles to jump over.
Many people enter January with a tight budget after the festive season which can result in late or missed payments which, from a landlords prospective could mean late rent, unpaid rent or tenants looking to downsize to cut costs.
Our team at Property Quote Direct […]

Top tips for tenant screening and reference checks

Let’s try and get your tenant selection right the first time
A property is one of the most valuable assets a person will own in their lifetime and therefore in an ideal world this asset will have minimal risk and therefore minimal damage or value depreciation.
Lets talk through the dos and don’ts when it comes to finding the right tenants to occupy your properties.
Do you have an ideal tenant in mind?
I’m sure we would all like some tenants who have a regular income, don’t smoke, don’t […]

Landlord Advice: Changing the Face of Landlords

Landlord Advice – There are numerous landlord services and advice lines out there designed to help landlords struggling with their businesses, however even if your business is doing well you can still face common problems. These days, one of the biggest problems landlords face is that there are numerous negative stereotypes surrounding them, meaning they are often ignored or even subjected to abuse.

Should Tenants be able to ‘Rent for Life’? private rental

As more and more people are relying on the private rental sector regulators have been campaigning for tenants to have better rights so that they can build a home and a life. The fact that tenants can be given six or twelve months’ notice to vacate their properties at any given time means that they often struggle to plan for the future, which is why a think tank has recently claimed that they should be allowed to ‘rent for life’. But what does this mean […]

How can Landlords help Tenants save money?

How can Landlords help Tenants save money?
The above question may strike some landlords as a bit strange, as generally it is not their job to help tenants save money. However, as the property and private rental markets are currently so unstable, working with your tenants could actually help improve your business and secure your income. At the end of the day, if your tenant falls into rent arrears then you are going to take a cut to your earnings and may even have to start […]

How can landlords help young people find homes?

A recent report published by the housing charity Shelter has shown that nearly half of all twenty to thirty four year olds are still living with their parents as they cannot afford to get onto the housing ladder. To make matters worse, this demographic is also struggling to afford current rent prices, meaning that we are seeing a generation of young people unable to leave home. As a landlord, you may think that this doesn’t affect you, however helping young people find homes can be […]

3 Reasons Rogue Landlords are back in the News

Rogue landlords are generally in the news as they are causing a number of issues in the private rental sector. However, this week we have seen even more reports than usual on rogue landlords as political leaders are discussing what changes they would implement if they came into power after the General Election. Here, PropertyQuoteDirect looks at the reasons why rogue landlords have been back in the news this week and what this means for the private rental sector:

The Growing Issue of Welfare Reforms and Landlords

The welfare reforms have been discussed at length in the news recently, mainly due to the fact that they are affecting thousands of people across the UK. The coalition government claim that the whole point of the welfare reforms is to make the benefit system fairer, however a number of schemes have already put some people in danger of losing their homes. Here, PropertyQuoteDirect looks at the issue in further detail:

Legal for Landlords: know your rights

Legal for Landlords: know your rights
Landlords often fail to protect their legal rights properly. Many see housing law as being there mainly to protect tenants. It should be used to protect landlords too.
The law can be complex. And when you have a long to-do list to deal with, it’s easy to push understanding the law to the bottom of it. We’ve covered landlords’ legal responsibilities recently. Now we’ve put together this list of the basics to help landlords know their rights.