In this post they mention 3 case studies that relate to;

1. Frozen Pipes
2. Damp and Mould
3. Storm Damage

What is useful is reading the advice on how these maintenance issues can be avoided.

There is a common theme that runs through all 3 of the case studies which revolve around providing evidence to support the landlords/tenants case.  These were,

1. Tenancy agreement
2. Check-in
3. Check-out reports with photographs

It is imperative that the above reports are completed to the highest of standards to provide the evidence needed to support your self as a Landlord or Letting Agent.

Attached below is the link to the case studies.  You can contact us should you need any help with your inventory reports.

NRLA Winter Disputes and Case Studies

A property inventory refers to a detailed record or list of items and conditions within a property, typically created before a tenant moves in and after they move out. Here are some benefits of having a property inventory:

1. Documentation of Property Condition:
   
   • An inventory provides a thorough documentation of the property's condition, including the state of fixtures, fittings, and furniture. This can serve as a baseline for comparison during and after a tenancy.
2. Dispute Resolution:
   
   • In the event of a dispute between the landlord and tenant regarding the condition of the property, the inventory can serve as objective evidence. It helps determine whether damage was pre-existing or occurred during the tenancy.  The same goes for cleaning a common dispute issue.
3. Security Deposit Protection:
   
   • For landlords, a detailed inventory can help justify deductions from the tenant's security deposit for any damages beyond normal wear and tear. It establishes a clear record of the property's condition at the beginning of the tenancy.
4. Legal Protection:
   
   • Having a comprehensive inventory may provide legal protection to both landlords and tenants. It helps define responsibilities and expectations, reducing the likelihood of misunderstandings and disputes.
5. Communication and Transparency:
   
   • Sharing the inventory with tenants at the start of the tenancy encourages open communication. It allows tenants to identify and report any discrepancies or missing items, fostering a transparent and collaborative landlord-tenant relationship.
6. Prevention of Disputes:
   
   • A well-documented inventory can prevent disputes by clearly outlining the condition of the property and its contents at the beginning of the tenancy. This reduces the likelihood of disagreements over the return of the security deposit.
7. Tenant Accountability:
   
   • Tenants are more likely to take care of the property and its contents when they are aware of the initial condition documented in the inventory. This encourages a sense of responsibility and accountability.
8. Efficient Property Management:
   
   • Landlords and property managers can use the inventory as a tool for efficient property management. It helps track the condition of assets over time and plan for necessary maintenance or replacements.  It acts as an 'audit'.
9. Insurance Purposes:
   
   • In case of damage to the property, the inventory can be useful for insurance claims. It provides a clear record of the property's contents and condition, aiding in the claims process.

In summary, a property inventory is a valuable tool that promotes transparency, reduces disputes, and helps maintain a well-managed and cared-for rental property.  This is what we help agents, tenants and landlords achieve as a supplier of these services.

As a key supplier in this industry we can help you achieve the above aligning our interests with your clients and yourselves.  Give us a call for a friendly chat.

 
​These are particularly relevant as the weather improves for summer and we move into peak lettings season as people look to move.

1. Aesthetics and Curb Appeal: Well-maintained gardens enhance the overall appearance of a property. A visually appealing garden creates a positive first impression and increases the curb appeal of the rental property. This can attract potential tenants and increase property value.
2. Tenant Satisfaction: A beautiful garden can contribute to tenant satisfaction. Tenants are more likely to feel happy and content in a property with a well-maintained garden. It provides them with a pleasant outdoor space to relax, entertain guests, or engage in gardening activities.
3. Health and Well-being: Gardens have numerous health benefits. They offer a natural environment that promotes relaxation, stress reduction, and mental well-being. Being surrounded by greenery, flowers, and fresh air can improve mood, reduce anxiety, and increase overall happiness.
4. Increased Rental Value: A well-kept garden can justify higher rental prices. Tenants are often willing to pay more for a property with a beautiful garden, as it adds value and provides an additional living space. Landlords can capitalise on this demand by investing in garden maintenance.
5. Retention of Good Tenants: A well-maintained garden can contribute to tenant retention. When tenants see that the landlord cares about the property and invests in its upkeep, they are more likely to extend their tenancy agreement. It reduces tenant turnover, which saves landlords time and money associated with finding new tenants.
6. Legal and Safety Obligations: Landlords have a legal responsibility to provide a safe living environment for their tenants. Neglected gardens can become hazards, with overgrown plants, uneven paths, or fallen branches. Regular maintenance ensures a safe environment and reduces the risk of accidents or injuries.
7. Environmental Impact: Gardens play a vital role in improving the environment. They provide habitats for birds, insects, and other wildlife, contribute to air purification, and help mitigate climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide. By maintaining gardens, both landlords and tenants contribute to a healthier and greener environment.
8. Having a well maintained garden makes it more appealing for families or those that have pets.

Give your tenants some helpful hints and direction on the benefits of looking after their garden/outdoor areas.

Encouraging tenants to take care of the garden can be achieved through effective communication, setting clear expectations, and providing incentives. Here are some strategies that Landlords & Agents can employ:

1. Include Garden Responsibilities in the Tenancy Agreement: Make sure the tenancy agreement includes clauses that specify the tenant's responsibilities for garden maintenance. Clearly outline the tasks expected of the tenant, such as watering, weeding, mowing the lawn, or pruning plants. By establishing these obligations upfront, tenants will understand their role in maintaining the garden.
2. Provide Clear Instructions and Guidelines: Create a simple and concise guide that outlines the specific maintenance requirements for the garden. Include information on watering schedules, lawn care, plant care, and any other necessary tasks. This document can serve as a reference for tenants and help them understand what is expected of them.
3. Communicate and Educate: Have a conversation with the tenant about the importance of garden maintenance and its impact on the overall property. Emphasise the benefits of a well-maintained garden, such as improved aesthetics, and a pleasant living environment. Provide them with gardening tips or direct them to resources where they can learn more about garden care.
4. Regular Inspections: Conduct periodic inspections of the property, including the garden area. Schedule inspections at reasonable intervals and inform tenants in advance. During the inspection, provide feedback on the garden's condition and offer any necessary guidance or recommendations for improvement.  By having a clear inventory at the start of the tenancy and a check-out at the end will ensure garden condition is recorded and will endeavour to meet expectations for garden upkeep.
5. Provide Tools and Resources: Ensure that tenants have access to the necessary tools and resources for garden maintenance. This may include providing a lawnmower, watering cans, basic gardening tools, or access to a hose or irrigation system. Making these resources readily available can make it easier for tenants to fulfill their garden care responsibilities.
6. Hire Professional Help: If the property has a larger or more complex garden or for executive homes, it may be worth considering hiring professional gardeners. You can negotiate a regular maintenance schedule with a gardening service and include the cost in the rent. This ensures that the garden is well-cared for while relieving the tenant of the responsibility.

Remember to approach the subject of garden care in a respectful and positive manner. Building a good landlord-tenant relationship, maintaining open communication, and fostering a sense of shared responsibility can greatly increase the likelihood of tenants taking care of the garden.

In conclusion, both landlords and tenants benefit from looking after gardens. It enhances property aesthetics, tenant satisfaction, and property value, while also promoting health, well-being, and environmental sustainability.

If you need any help or advice on this or recording and documenting garden condition or you property at the start of a tenancy just ask us.

nk@clearpropertyservice.co.uk
​+44 7932 760 563

Normally a good check-out report will summarise all actions for the agent/property manager, breaking it down into sections;

1. Tenant Responsibility - Tenant should be liable for the dilapidation
2. Landlord Responsibility - Landlord should rectify the issue
3. Maintenance - Item needs fixing - likely agent/landlord responsibility
4. Miscellaneous 
5. Cleaning - This is one of the most common issues, see our blog on cleaning

Typically we should deal with the tenant items first as the deposit should normally be returned within 10 days.
If there is a dispute and neither party can agree then the disputed amount must be retained by agent/landlord with required evidence submitted to the adjudicator for review.

Deposit - A tenant deposit, also known as a security deposit or rental deposit, is a sum of money paid by a tenant to a landlord or property owner at the beginning of a tenancy. The purpose of the deposit is to provide the landlord with financial security against any potential damages, unpaid rent, or other breaches of the tenancy agreement by the tenant.

Dilapidations - Tenant dilapidations refer to the repairs, alterations, or reinstatement works that a tenant may be responsible for carrying out at the end of a tenancy, or during the tenancy term as specified in the tenancy agreement.  These will be specified in the check-out.

Betterment - When assessing damage a landlord cannot improve or enhance the value of a specific item over what it is worth, they must 'apportion' the damage see below.  

Apportionment - This is the process that must be used when an item is partially damages taking account of its original condition and expected useful life - see product lifespan.  The apportionment formula must be used.

Use the apportionment formula if an item has to be replaced, see below example.

1. Cost of similar replacement carpet/item = £500
2. Actual age of existing carpet/item = 2 years
3. Average useful lifespan of that type of carpet/item = 10 years
4. Residual lifespan of carpet/item calculated as ‘3)’ less ‘2)’ = 8 years
5. Depreciation of value rate calculated as ‘1)’ divided by ‘3)’ = £50 per year
6. Reasonable apportionment cost to tenant calculated as ‘4)’ times ‘5)’ = £400

Check-Out Report - The back to back audit of the original inventory noting differences and allocating responsibility.

Understanding these terms and applying a process to assess the tenants deposit to return will result in a fair conclusion to the tenancy.

If you need help with check-out assessments or deposits just ask us.

nk@clearpropertyservice.co.uk
​+44 7932 760 563

​What are some of the benefits?

1. Improved relationships between all parties
2. Property maintained in good order 'forever'.
3. On going maintenance avoids big issues, and big costs over time
4. Tenant may stay on longer
5. Improved rents and yields

At Clear Property Service Company we summarise all maintenance issues as an actions list as an appendix at the end of our reports, this enables property managers to quickly establish issues and resolutions for landlords and tenants.  If you want the same level of detail and quality then contact us and we can show you what we do.

nk@clearpropertyservice.co.uk
+44 7932 760 563

So What are the Biggest Time Suckers for Estate Agents and how to Overcome them?
 
Time spent on non-commission relevant activities create a large vacuum of inefficiency, an agent must define what are service/operational and commission focused tasks.
 
Agents should look to systemise or outsource non-core activities such as inventories, check in/outs, deposit estimations and referencing.  These do not drive commissions and are not a specialised activity for the agent who may lack the experience or knowledge to do it well.  Other estate agency outsourced compliance related activities are also being driven by other firms.
 
Agents should spend more time on letting valuations, following up leads, nurturing/engaging landlords and tenants.  These drive commissions, improve service quality and retain clients.  They are core specialist tasks for the agent that they should develop and consistently utilise.

Lets take a look at the typical time and activities of letting a property.  Utilising this method we can work out the return based upon the time spent on managing a property.  By doing this analysis will enable the agent to look at areas to streamline or outsource.  We spoke to a couple of our clients to understand where time is spent on letting a property.  This illustration is only a guide and will differ between agents, agent type and property as well as other activities.

From the above we can see that the time taken by an agent doing all the above activities per year is around 40 hours per property.  In this case a 2 bed flat, larger properties may take longer.  This means 1 member of staff working full time could manage around 40 to 50 properties a year doing all the above. 
 
But if the staff member only had to concentrate on the core activities hypothetically they could then manage 80 to 100 properties per year.  The benefits of doing this are increased portfolio size, better commissions, better servicing by using specialised suppliers, higher staff motivation and morale as they can focus on building the business and most importantly better time spent on nurturing Landlords and Agents to retain and grow.  It is easy to lose a client but much harder to win one, so why not spend time keeping them?

Why are these Time Absorbing Activities so Important?

The lettings industry is competitive and changing rapidly.  More tighter regulation and pressure catches up with agents that are not prepared, they cannot cope and service quality drops, they loose clients and the business suffers.

By refocusing on core vs non core activities as above will lead to better profitability, better client retention and growth, and better staff morale, delivering a better overall service that beats the competition.

Here is an apt quote from Seth Godin - Writer and former dotcom businessman

“There’s no shortage of remarkable ideas, what’s missing is the will to execute them.” – Seth Godin 
 
Best practice tips.

1. Analyse your current lettings business based upon the time spent model above, speak to your key staff.
2. Identify areas that are operational, or service oriented that do not impact the bottom line.
3. Can these areas be streamlined through outsourcing to suppliers, or improving the current process?
4. How much time would be saved if you did this that can be directly reallocated to profit generating and retention activities
5. Translate this into actual cost of outsourcing and reengineering,
6. Translate reallocated time into revenue generated and see if there is an upside to profit, servicing quality and competitive edge.

Focus on the basics what is core what is not core, take a top down view, analyse, identify and execute, it’s your business it’s your opportunity and your profit!
 
Contact us now we can manage your whole inventory, check in, check out and inspection processes as well as enabling your deposit dispute/renegotiation process to be simpler and easier.

'As part of this planning process we have spent some time talking to experienced people in the industry to better help us understand the impact and what landlords and agents can do to better prepare.   We recently spoke to Pauline Thomas at Creative Green Energy an experienced DEA (Domestic Energy Assessor) who gave us some insights as to how agents and landlords can better prepare their properties for improved EPC ratings.  Here are some of her tips.*

As an experienced DEA their top tips are:

1. Read your EPC and ensure the basic details are correct - size, property type.
 
2. Look at the elements such as walls, heating type etc to ensure that they are also correct.
 
3. Complete ‘all the possible improvements’, the government doesn’t define that, these include where relevant - cavity wall/ loft insulation, all fitted lights low energy, glazing double/ secondary/ triple, efficient heating and hot water, controls which include programmer/ thermostat and TRV for GCH. 
 
Generally speaking when all these are present a property could improve the rating potentially to a 'C', other factors do apply such as ground floor and top floor flats, very large or small property, urban or rural settings. 
 
4. Note when the EPC was produced as algorithms change over time. 
 
5. Ask the DEA who produced your last EPC to re-run as a draft EPC as is, and also with all possible improvements indicated, (as relevant and as per list noted in item 3.). You will then have a good idea of what is needed and have a predictable outcome. 
 
6. Find out what funding is available, inform your tenant about ECO4, offer support with the application/ install. Source funding for landlord as offered by boroughs like the City of Westminister. Act now to make improvements. 
 
​Further improvements like solid wall and floor insulation could improve the rating even further potentially to a 'B'. 

We are not sure exactly when the new legislation will come in, we do know that improved properties are cheaper or more efficient when heating is used, will be cooler in the summer, also future proof. 
 
We hope you find this information useful.
 
If you want to talk to us about this, or getting high quality inventories and check ins conducted for your properties by an experienced property team then do get in touch with us.
 
*The opinions given above are those of the assessor at Creative Green Energy and do not reflect the opinions or views of Clear Property Service Company its affiliates or employees

The attached case studies from one of the deposit providers (TDS) shows genuine examples of adjudication decisions based upon redecorating.

Example - Poor condition of walls, holes made by tenant, condition of walls at end of useful life.

Case Study 1

Example - Tenant redecorated to a better standard than condition of walls at start of tenancy.
​
Case Study 2

These provide valuable reading for all parties.  If you need help or advice then do let us know.

If you as the Landlord or Agent are compiling inventory, check-in or check out reports or are using a separate inventory company, please ensure these items are covered and recorded in the inspection reports as evidence for compliance and to avoid any risk. 

​If you have any questions do ask us.

It is that time of year when retailers are banging on about the discounts they can offer and why you can’t resist as ‘these prices’ will not be around for much longer.  I wonder out of 100 purchases, the person buying, how many of them actually really needed the item they purchased or did they do it on a whim?  In the words of Martin Lewis and his money mantras,

​Source: Martin Lewis – moneysavingexpert
 
What am I getting at and what does this have to do with property and investment?
 
Everyone wants to be a property investor/developer, but many enter the game not understanding the investment involved in terms of time, money, and effort.  A property is like a car, over time it needs love and affection in terms of maintenance and repairs and oversight.  If these are not adhered to, problems build up causing the opposite effect of more time wasted, more money wasted and drag on the investment value created.  Ironically even owner occupiers will buy or refurbish a beautiful property then skrimp on such things as garden maintenance and cleaning.  But why?  Is it affordability?  Then they should read the money mantras above.  If not, then logic dictates that these assets are worthy of time and investment to maintain them and enhance their value.
 
So what is the link between Black Friday and property?
 
The perception of paying for something cheaply will not necessarily enhance the overall value aspect to your bottom line, it is a red herring likely storing up trouble for the future unless it has demonstratable good value that will last over time like a well maintained and managed property asset. 
 
Again, paying for cheap management of a property during it’s letting does not necessarily result in ‘value’ creation, rather detraction.  This applies to all ancillary services related to this such as gas, electrical, handyman, inventories, and cleaning.  We are only human and will spend several hundreds of pounds going out during the month eating at fancy restaurants and drinking and classy bars, but we are sometimes loath to spend this money when required on our property assets which will enhance in value over time and for many will be a pension.  It’s a crazy thought process!!??
 
Like I said we do not have Black Friday Sales, our remit is to partner up and offer and supply inventory and cleaning services that have demonstratable value and worth in their quality and fit for the Landlord and Agent.   Just ask us.
 
www.clearpropertyservice.co.uk
nk@clearpropertyservice.co.uk
07932 760 563