Avoid hidden costs when buying a rental property
Are you familiar with this scenario?
You have found the property that you want to buy; you contact either the vendor or the agents to arrange a viewing. After looking over the property for approximately 5-25 minutes you say yes and leave.
Your offer is accepted and you are on your way to purchasing the property which may range from £100k to £500k.
How many of us view the property again before completion? Why not?
It’s because of the way we expect thing to be done I suppose. In an ideal world if there have been any maintenance issue arising whilst the property is under offer, they would have been sorted.
When the property is finally purchased and you get the keys the property is cleaned and ready to move in.
Unfortunately this ideal world is becoming less and less apparent.
A simple recommendation is to visit the property at regular intervals, you may think that vendors will be concerned or annoyed by these visits but I believe that it is usually the opposite.
Whilst there use this checklist for the following:
• Stains to ceiling below wet areas
• Stains to ceilings below water tanks and hot water cylinders
• Cleanliness of property throughout the offer period
• Rug on carpets take look underneath they sometimes hide a multitude of sins
• Confirm with vendor what is included in the sale price
• Do the vendors have pets, this can have pest implications and you may like to include before the complication goes through that the carpets are wet cleaned and pest treated
It is becoming a growing problem when the sale has completed and the monies have exchanged, you visit the property for the first time as the new owner, and find the following (all draw from my real life experiences with Investment Landlords)
• The vendor didn’t want his old fridge or freezer therefore he has left it in the kitchen, you don’t want it and you then have to arrange to get rid of it. You may think, well that’s not an issue as the local council will collect large items well they won’t if the previous owner has had his full entitlement for that year.
• You check through the property further and find that the carpets are soiled and overall the property is not in a condition where you can just move in.
• The roof space is full of rubbish – very rarely will you find an antique worth a million
• The garage has the remains of an engine or spare tyre in it
• You find a supply of student road signs that they have decided they don’t want at they new property anymore
• The garden is full of the vendors dogs toiletries
• The wheelie bins (if relevant) are full to the brim with the wrong waste which the local authorities now fine for, anything from £60.00
• There has been a leak from the bathroom and the ceiling is bowed or the artex is starting to lift
What can you do?
Unfortunately if the monies have already exchanged then nothing can be done.
If you are an investment buyer and the vendor is aware of this, they sometimes are less careful when leaving the property but unfortunately this is also starting to happen with purchaser/ occupiers.
I would therefore recommend that before exchange of any monies you organise either yourself or the Letting agent who will be marketing your property for rental to visit the property the day before exchange or completion to check the property over.
If this request is refused then this should sound alarm bells and therefore I would suggest that you ask your solicitors to withhold at least £500.00 to cover cleaning, clearance and possibly any faults.
This £500.00 may not cover all the costs but will help a long way towards cleaning. If there are any other major issues then a solicitor will act to recover costs if the property is faulty.
It is a wise investment as a best to get the support of a company offering services such as property maintenance for buy-to-let landlords.
About the Author: Liz Lucking is the owner of Westone Housing Services specialises in providing professional property maintenance services in Peterborough, UK
More articles by Graham Drage
Print Article | Download PDF | 8 views | Jul 02 2008
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