Letting your house on a long term lease?

Under new legislation about to go through there will be no lng term leases, in that you can specify a finish date. A tenant will have the right to remain unless very specific conditions for eviction are met.

You may find at a future date that you will have to sell with a sitting tenant.

I let my house when I moved to this new area. Even without the new legislation it has proved very, very difficult to regain possession so that I can sell it and nobody wants to buy a rental house.

Either evicting the tenant or selling involves an enormous financial loss so at the moment I am keeping it. If the tenant ever moves I will sell.

Is your home overpriced?
Demand for bungalows is generally high, perhaps lower the price or get another agent.

How bad does a bungalow have to be for it not to sell?
Not sure there is a bottom price, as the land then becomes the valuable part.
Or am I wrong?

I suppose an exception might be if it is on contaminated land.
Or about to drop off a cliff. Or in a very bad crime area.

Lathyrus is right Southdowns. Even under current legislation it can be be extremely difficult, costly and a lengthy process to evict a tenant, even one who has not taken care of your property.

We know this from personal experience so please think very carefully before pursuing this.

Bungalows are so popular, is it overpriced, in a bad area or does it have a structure problem?
I think you should get advice from a estate agent.

Do you think mortgage interest may drop now?
That might help.

Bungalows are very popular and usually sell fairly easily.
I would ask your estate agent if they can see a reason for it not selling.

"Do agents actually look after any problems with the property that might and probably will arise"

I have let a flat on what is termed full management and have used letting agents for ten years, these are my observations.

Full management is somewhat of a misnomer, what you actually pay for, which incidentally costs me 11 and half per cent, plus VAT of the monthly rent, is Monday to Friday management and that's pretty standard whoever you might appoint. If the tenant has a problem over the weekend they are on their own from 5 pm on Friday to 9 am on Monday, there is no emergency number supplied. On one occasion my tenants had reason to call out an emergency plumber over that period and they tend to be more costly. I would also advise that I have found that the letting agents panel of appointed tradesmen are top dollar and not particularly the best, for example, we had one firm of plumbers that had to redo some work carried out, three months down the line, for which they charged again. In the end I refused to use them and they, the agents had to find an alternative. There have been occasions when I felt it would have been more expedient if I'd sorted the problem out myself, but then that's what the landlord pays a third party for. All in all, you pay a lot for very little, an annual inspection plus all the necessary checks to make sure your property is fully compliant and safe to let, again not unreasonably you do pay for all those checks at the outset. However, I do sometimes feel that it would be easier for us to have sourced our own plumbers and electricians etc. because at times I think we have been ripped off by the ones the letting agents used.

Also be aware that legislation is changing regarding no fault evictions, something that has had repercussions for newly resigned homelessness minister no! you couldn't make it up even if she did actually want to sell the property, the tenants I believe were evicted, which isn't good optics for someone who is a homeless minister, and when the property didn't sell, she re-let it at a vastly hiked monthly rent. None of that is illegal at the moment, but will change.

I would also advise that you take out an insurance policy to protect you if the tenants default on their rent, the insurers will reimburse you for those lost payments and they would also pay any court costs that would arise in prospective evictions if you have the right grounds for that. Your letting agent should also advise you on the best policy, usually you can do that through them.

However, if you get all your ducks in a row, quite possibly using a letting agent is the best option because many landlords don't want to be hands on, especially if you live some distance from your property. I wish you good luck with that, it is doable but be aware of the pitfalls.

Be very careful when letting your house .

Finding a responsible letting agent is crucial.
Several of my friends had their house trashed - house left filthy ,
stolen /broken furniture and overgrown gardens .
Please get another estate agent and estimate.
Perhaps your house isn't being presented in the right way - there are some tricks of the trade .

One of my friends is selling her semi at the moment and no one is buying.
It's in the right place and is nicely decorated - but so cluttered and untidy. I think that it puts buyers off .

Why not go to auction it if you want to move things along. You can set a minimum price you are prepared to let it go for.
I hope you had estimates from more than one agent.

You could ask the question on your local Facebook group. Then you would get the perspective from tenants as to which agents are the most reliable.

If you bungalow isn't selling watch some of Channel 4s TV show "Can't Sell, Must Sell," which features property developers Scarlette and Stuart Douglas helping homeowners transform unsellable houses into desirable homes to get them sold quickly. This might help you see things that are preventing the house from getting away. Certainly as others say look again at your agent and the price. The costs involved in renting your property would be high so reducing your price to get it sold is the best thing.

I would look again at trying to sell rather than go in to long term letting at the moment.

A letting agent should collect the rent for you, and chase for any late payments, but realistically they soon revert back to the property owner to handle any serious arrears e.g. no payment for a couple months or so. Insurance policy might be a good idea, but still does not deal with a bad tenant you cannot easily move out.

Agents vary in how effective they are at actually managing the property, as others have said the tradesmen they use are usually unsupervised and most of the jobs that have been done for us under this arrangement have been mediocre at top dollar price. It is really worth hunting around for an experienced agent. Steer clear of any that puts a school leaver or other inexperienced person in charge of maintenance, collections, or any part of the transaction with the tenant really. This side of the work needs experience and a professional approach.

Likewise, at end of tenancy: An experienced agent, with a serious approach, is your best bet for getting compensation/deposit retention for any damage sorted out with your tenant.

There are also onerous (potentially expensive) responsibilities on landlords for health and safety, especially fire safety. It’s right and proper that all rented places should be safe, but the regulations often exceed the type of safety measures you would have in your own home, so there might be up front costs to put them in. Also, anything in the house which is not totally 100% fine and working (sometimes as a homeowner we might readily live with e.g. a cupboard door that sticks, a lock that needs a ‘knack’ to open it, a tap that drips unless you know to turn it off thoroughly etc) will need fixing or replacing before you let, otherwise you will get complaints, broken items, or expensive repairs.

Who would be a landlord these days!? 🤪

Bungalows have always been hard to sell, families don't want them and the old are downsizing.

Another option, which we chose, is to let it out on Airbnb as a Serviced Accommodation. We actually passed our to a management company who let it out for us and they take 15% plus that of all the increment generates. Thankfully our property has been fully booked for months because the agency we use specialises in Contractors. We don’t have any problems the agency is very efficient and we’re happy to leave it there until the market changes and we earn a good income and we don’t have to do anything, the agency does it all.

Another landlord here, and my advice is not to rent out your property. The current tenants are lovely, but in 13 years of renting properties, my experience has been far from rosy, and I'm now getting to the age where I don't want the hassle of fixing and maintaining

If you are within travelling from a USAF base IN Uk, their housing office will manage letting and any rent default is immediately dealt with . A U.S. Airmen generally does not want a bad record when renting overseas .
Airforce pay airmen a rent allowance according to rank.
Just an idea.. we have had great success renting to USAF . The only downside for landlord is that renter can be relocated overseas at very short notice, and understanding of this is written into contract.

With the forthcoming changes in legislation, giving all the power to the tenant, I would not let out any property, even if it was a garden shed! I was lucky when I let out a flat - a good tenant, rent paid on time and the place looked after. I managed it myself.

I suggest you look at the television programme "Rogue Tenants, Slum Landlords" - some salutary lessons therein.

Our SA friends, lately living in UK 7 years, decided to return to outside Cape Town. Couldn't sell their luxury apartment, as the charges are prohibitive, so they rented it out. Fast forward to last year, when they actually found a buyer - no chain, a 90 year old single lady who loved the apartment. BUT sitting tenant refused to move out saying he would stay put until a court order was produced. From CT, this cost them an arm and 16 legs, they lost the buyer, the tenant moved out, so now the apartment is empty. They are hoping for another buyer but there doesn't seem to be anyone in the offing. Take heed but good luck.

Every property has a price at which it will sell. If your bungalow is not selling pricing is definitely an issue. Have stern words with your Estate Agent about this, ask for advice. Depending on the price bracket, you could think about hiring a professional to stage your property. They assess it, the area, the likely buyers and using a combination of your own or hired furniture & accoutrements, then get the agent to take new photos. You could do this yourself with advice, of course. I always severely declutter, using a local storage facility for furniture that makes the rooms cluttered (to others), books, decorative items etc. Before each viewing I would again stage the house with fresh flowers, opened windows, pleasant aromas etc. You need prospective buyers to be able to see past your well loved items and the easiest way is to remove them and provide a minimalist view to people coming round.

My DiL was selling her DM house to help her downsize. It sat for months with very few views.
I looked at it online and saw the problem. It had been photographed in winter with dead looking plants in garden pots. The low ceilings -it's a historic house- looked dark and gloomy.

They found a new agent and much improved presentation and were instantly rewarded.

They didn't have to reduce the price.

Airbnb….but get someone reliable or a proper agent to manage the turnarounds. You can continue to advertise it for sale provided you restrict the bookings to say 3 months in advance. This also gives you the opportunity to declutter and stage your house. Have you tried changing estate agents? We went with a national firm…they actually lied to us about some factual issues and also over estimated the value. After 3 months with barely any viewings we swapped to an independent agen who had sold a lot of properties locally, dropped the price, and had an offer, acceptable to us, within 9 days.

If I were you I would get a new agent. Is it overpriced? Do you need every last penny or could you drop the price a bit for a quicker sale? Selling might mean less long term stress for you. Letting it out could potentially cause more stress and more financial outlay. If it was me I’d want to just get it sold then go and enjoy my life by the sea.