General Advice and Best Practice

ENERGY PERFORMANCE CERTIFICATES

All properties being advertised for letting must now have a valid Energy Performance Certificate (EPC). If you have bought your residential property within the last 3 or 4 years you will probably find that your property has already had an EPC carried out on it. Check with the EPC register for free to see if you have already got one, if not then we will be able to arrange this for you.

GAS SAFETY

All properties with Gas appliances (Boilers, Fire’s, Cooker’s, Warm air heating etc) must have their gas system and appliances checked annually. It is the Landlord’s legal responsibility to ensure this is undertaken and failure to adhere to this legislation can result in large fines or even a prison sentence. We can assist with preparing and monitoring this for you.

INSURANCE

We advise all landlords to ensure they have the correct Landlord’s insurance policy in place to protect themselves and the tenants in the event of something happening to the rental property. Premiums can vary with area and size of a property and so we would recommend speaking to our insurance broker who would be happy to provide a personalised quote.

FIRE SAFETY

Fire safety and provisions. We strongly recommend that all possible measures are taken by you as a landlord to minimise the risk of fire or maximise the safety measures in place should a fire occur. We can help provide you with advice on how we feel your property can be improved on in this regard and can assist in arranging any improvements that may be legally necessary. Fire safety ranges in its legal requirements based on many factors mainly determined by the size and nature of your property. We would be happy to arrange a Fire Risk assessment on your behalf by a UKFRAC (or other suitably governed body ) engineer. We utilise a small local company for this and the cost is usually very minimal.

MORTGAGE

We also ask that should you have a mortgage on your rental property that the mortgage company is aware that you are letting the property. If your property is a buy to let then this is already given, however, if you are renting a property that may have been your former residential home you may need consent from your mortgage to prevent you from breaking your terms and conditions with them. Should you need any help or advice in this respect we will happily refer you to our Independent Mortgage Adviser who would be able to assist.

If you need more advice on any of the required documents or policies needed to let a property, please contact us for help.