Anyone taken on a tenant direct that they got through an agent?

[Old Hack]

What happens when their Boiler packs in at 15:00 christmas eve, where as it was the agents problem is that now your problem.

My mate rented a house to some people direct, appeared to be a nice family, then they stopped paying the rent, then he found out they had been evicted before, then he discovered they had removed the doors from the upstairs cupboards and had used them to make a ferret hutch in the garden, anyway 2 and a half years later he managed to get them evicted again, the house was a shell

I'd never encourage anyone to do it direct from the get go; at least if you use an agent from the start, you can guage what kind of people they are. I am very wary of this precise scenario to be frank.

[Fandango]

do you not just get something like homecare with someone like eon for ~£21/month which covers cenrtal heating, water & electrics 24/7 inc parts & labour? just give the tenant that number

That's what i'm planning to do when we rent ours out after xmas

[Old Hack]

do you not just get something like homecare with someone like eon for ~£21/month which covers cenrtal heating, water & electrics 24/7 inc parts & labour? just give the tenant that number

That's what i'm planning to do when we rent ours out after xmas

We have landlord insurance which pretty much covers everything they could do, and loss of rental, including rebuilding it if they really went to town! Costs about £24 a month through Halifax

[Support Monkey]

I think it depends how you feel about it, if your happy to deal with your tenants then just make sure your well insured if you don't want to be involved at all and don't want the hassle then just pay your money and get the agent to deal with it

[Old Hack]

I think it depends how you feel about it, if your happy to deal with your tenants then just make sure your well insured if you don't want to be involved at all and don't want the hassle then just pay your money and get the agent to deal with it

I think after 6-12 months with a tenant, you get a feel for them being the types to give you troubles. I have one who is a real green type; he doesn't mow the lawns, leaves them overgrown and on my last visit, I noticed he'd dug a fire pit in the middle of the back garden. I don't really care, as long the house looks nice, the front garden looks nice. Outside of that, I have made it clear to him, that when he leaves, he'll have to rectify the hole, and make the garden good.

I have spoken with him, in 4 years, maybe 6 times, and 3 of those were lately when he was discussing a price for the house in case he wanted to buy it. Honestly, if you are new to this, simply get them on an agents books for a while, then soon after, you'll know if they are fussy (call agent every 5 minutes), bad payers, dirty (neighbours will complain), noisey (ditto) or just good folk who need to rent a house. People can act, but they can rarely hold it together for 12 months, so it all comes out in the wash eventually.

[Fandango]

We have landlord insurance which pretty much covers everything they could do, and loss of rental, including rebuilding it if they really went to town! Costs about £24 a month through Halifax

So does that insurance also cover things like boiler cover etc as well? or do you take out seperate cover for that? I would have thought if its an insurance policy and you need to put in a claim for the boiler as a bit died on it then that's going to knacker your no claims etc come the subsequent year when you need to renew and obviously a boiler breakdown is a lot more likely to happen than someone trashing the property (hopefully!?!)

[northernladuk]

As an aside, one of our tenants called an electrician to change a light bulb once, then tried to charge me the £45; anyone any other interesting tenant stories?

Same. Have had a quote for £75 for three. I wouldn't mind but it was 3 bulbs in a 12 bulb chandalier, not even 3 different lamps. Robbing twats.

[norrahe]

Tenant has been on the books for a year, no major problems apart from niggles with plumbing we knew might crop up at some point.

Tenant has problems with the fact the agent is trying to hit them with a £100 fee for renewal.

We've got insurance, reliable maintenance peeps. So short of producing a contract, registering with a deposit scheme that should do it.

[Old Hack]

So does that insurance also cover things like boiler cover etc as well? or do you take out seperate cover for that? I would have thought if its an insurance policy and you need to put in a claim for the boiler as a bit died on it then that's going to knacker your no claims etc come the subsequent year when you need to renew and obviously a boiler breakdown is a lot more likely to happen than someone trashing the property (hopefully!?!)

Yes, you get all sorts of cover een I didn't think of; I'll drag out the policy in a mo and list it

[Support Monkey]

Same. Have had a quote for £75 for three. I wouldn't mind but it was 3 bulbs in a 12 bulb chandalier, not even 3 different lamps. Robbing twats.

What do you charge an hour for your time.

I am not defending the price but your asking them to get in their van drive to your house and installed 3 lightbulbs so lets say an hours work. what would you charge

My son is an electrician and the company he works for charge £230 for a wall socket install.