Are you a landlord looking for a fixed rental income, paid whether the property is empty or not? Steve Westley, general manager at estate agents Elliot Leigh, explains their Guaranteed Rent Scheme and how it takes the stress out of letting your property.
What is a guaranteed rent scheme?
The guaranteed rent scheme aims to take away as much of the hassle and risk that a landlord can encounter when renting out a property.
Elliot Leigh will do this by leasing a property from a landlord for a period of one-to-five years and guarantee the landlord their rent every single month. Even if the property is empty, the landlord will continue to receive their rental income every month, ensuring peace of mind.
One of the biggest worries for a landlord is whether they’re going to get their rent on time every month. With mortgage payments, service charges, insurances and other associated costs ever increasing, a landlord needs to ensure they receive a reliable and consistent rent.
Because we effectively rent the property from the landlord, we deal with most minor repairs at the property, free-of-charge. This means we don’t have to contact the landlord for every little thing. All inspections and maintenance are handled by our qualified and experienced in-house teams to give landlords satisfaction and peace of mind that the property is well looked after.
When a tenant vacates a property our team will attend and complete the required work to make the property ready for a new tenant to move into. During this time, the landlord would still receive their regular rent.
Will the landlord get the market rate for their property?
In today’s market, a landlord can expect to have empty periods in-between tenancies while works take place and new tenants are found.
We can source the wider market to ensure that landlord achieves the best possible rent. We work with around 20 London boroughs to make sure that we can get the best possible rent for the landlord.
The guaranteed rent scheme tracks market rents as close as possible. Often, a landlord can be in a better financial position on this scheme. There is no commission payable, minimal repair obligations, no empty periods and no furniture requirements compared to private rentals.
What protections does a landlord have against a bad tenant?
We protect landlords against the normal risks of letting a property including loss of rent, property damage and evictions.
We guarantee the rent will still be paid to the landlord during any unoccupied periods.
We will refurbish the property when the tenant moves out to ensure it meets the required standards.
We also deal with all eviction proceedings and cover all related costs in the rare event that a tenant needs to be evicted.
How can a landlord be sure that their property isn’t going to be misused?
A number of boroughs have brought in ‘selective licensing’ recently, whereby every property, whether it’s rented as a house in multiple occupation (HMO) or a normal rental, has to be licensed. We’re exempt from most licensing schemes because the property already exceeds these standards. We ensure the property is maintained to this standard by inspecting the property every 4 – 12 weeks.
We provide inspection reports to the landlord on request and we can make arrangements for a landlord to attend the property with us if they wish.
We also complete all minor repairs and will always try and send an engineer out first to a property to try and fix it free of charge.
What would you say sets your scheme apart from schemes offered elsewhere in the capital?
We were one of the first companies to offer guaranteed rent to landlords back in 2003. Since then we have continually improved our service over the last 15 years, in line with our ISO 9001 accreditation, and have a continued focus on excellent customer service. Each property has a dedicated property inspector, property manager, and accounts manager whom the landlord can speak to if there are any issues.
All contractors we use have to go through our strict vetting process to ensure value for money with a high quality of work for our clients. Elliot Leigh is a member of The Property Ombudsman, should any disputes arise.
We’ve seen the hard times with local authorities cutting funding, and have been very resilient to any changes that the market or Government has brought about. We’re often asked to consult at local authority and government level on housing strategy due to our quality of service and expertise in the field.
To arrange your free valuation, or for more information on any other aspect of the Guaranteed Rent Scheme, call Elliot Leigh on 020 8983 4444 or visit elliotleigh.com.
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