House letting, any problems to consider Forums

C7KEN

Norman I would go for it soon and make the most of the time you have, remember to stick with this site as some of us live on the continent (spain in our case) and may be handy contacts for you on your travels

sallytrafic · Southern Rally Co-ordinator

I can speak from my experience and that of a number of my colleagues.

I went to Borneo for a little over two years. My estate agent cost me 12.5% of gross rent - at that time 10% was considered pricey.

They were worth every penny. They handled everything. I was only a few days without rent and overall I paid no tax. Each month they deducted the amount that could have been payable in tax and invested it for me. They were so skilled at dealing with the inland revenue that after the tax affairs had been sorted for the final year they were able to give me a cheque that was bigger than all the tax that they had put aside.

The house and garden were returned in better condition than when I handed it to them. The neighbours said that the only worry they had was when two female bikers had the tenancy. Apparently the estate agent read the riot act about the state of the garden and a chapter of hells angels came and gave it a makeover.

I can contrast that with the experience of two others. My replacement in Brunei never got back into his house and it was later sold with a sitting tenant. He paid 8% to an agency not even based in his town. Another colleague seemed to have extensive periods with no lets. He returned to UK for a funeral and found the property trashed, which explained his lack of tenants, he was later to sue the agency (a franchised agency that settled out of court) and he did quite well out of it but at considerable hassle to himself.

Oh we did get one bit of hassle our tenant wasn't out of the house when we came back (removal problem I think) but they put us up for two nights in a good hotel while they helped them move out. They still dealt with our tax affairs until the end of the financial year (we came back in December). A year on the tax man made a (schedule D?) tax demand they sorted that out for me as well. Bizarrely I got a cheque from IR (for about £9) as a result.

Moral you get what you pay for. This was a local well established firm quite used to looking after estates as well as my three bedroomed semi. The lady who I dealt seemed formidable to me don't know how she came across to tenants.

Now that there are so many buy to let properties lots of letting agencies have sprung up that do no service for either tenant or landlord I reckon they should be given a wide berth.

Regards Frank

BIGFRANK

Am I missing something? Who is this tax man fella. Or Inland revenue.
big Frank

JockandRita · Last edited by JockandRita on Sat Jan 06, 2007 7:42 pm; edited 1 time in total

geraldandannie · Moderator

BIGFRANK

Suenliam

For what it's worth - my twopenny worth ...........

Enjoy the time without the stress of worrying about the property - pay someone else to do that.

Time cannot be bought, but services such as letting agents and tax accountants can. Buy them to use your time together in great places rather than filling in tax returns etc. and worrying about how the place is getting on without you to oversee the details.

What ever you do, do it now and enjoy yourselves.

Sue

TUCANO

Thanks again people, reading all you have to say with interest.
Just returned from Richard Baldwins Motorhomes after our first look at the new Autotrail Apache. I could buy the damn thing now but Kay keeps on saying wait,wait !!
How long, what for !!!!!
Question, has anyone heard about Gaslow 13kg bottles being unavailable because someone ! has bought the entire stock from Gaslow and effectually put a stop to their installation.
The guy at Baldwins was completely puzzled by the situation.
Regards to all,
Norman

geraldandannie · Moderator

Hi, Norman

I doubt that. There were some shortages around the back end of last year, due to high demand. This was being attended to, and I thought that the shortages were eliminated before Christmas.

I don't think Gaslow would allow 'someone' to buy the whole stock - it makes no economic sense, because you're depriving future customers of the bottles, which would outweigh a single purchase, I would guess.

Check with Gaslow directly - contact details