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Hi Jamal, great, I did my NEC4 at the start of the year. Its quite a straightforward transition if you are already NEC3 Accredited. Drop me an email at ben@delburygroup.co.uk I would be happy to meet and discuss (location dependent of course). The surveying background will obviously come in handy, its those sorts of skills which can save you a bunch of time and cost. Hi Satnam, thanks for connecting on LinkedIn, looking forward to our catch up!

Hi Russ, Great article. Here are some tips from me: Regarding skips, think about getting a tarpaulin which you can cover the skip with and also lock it down. You dont want to return the next day and find someone else has filled your skip. OR fill it the same day. Organising the works. Try to build a relationship with trusted trades, get them to look around the property as soon as you get the keys. Agree a scope of works which are required, this then allows you to build a specification which you can use to obtain prices. Getting them in early also allows you to ask the trade when they need to start works, e.g. before painting but after strip out etc... For painting, try and finish doing all the sanding before painting OR make sure the paint is dry before doing more sanding...for obvious sticky reasons! For painting; use permawhite or similar for bathrooms and kitchens, it provides a protective covering which stops mould and is washable...great for tenants. Painting - decide whether you want to go with oil based or acrylic paints, oil based yellows more but have a look online for the pro's and con's All smoke alarms should be of the same brand/ make. If they are hard wired and are of different makes they could trigger each other to alarm (based on what i have been told). For buying kitchens/ bathrooms and pretty much everything, make sure to use LNPG (Landlords National Purchasing Group). There is loads of other things which are minor but thats a good started from me. Keep up the great work, loving the checklists! Thanks, Ben

Hi Kasia, To be honest I could only advise on the larger scale companies but they may also survey residential property. One company I have previously used is Lucion (https://www.lucionservices.com/). They were pretty good but like I say I have only used them for corporate surveys. Hope that helps, sounds like you are taking all the right steps! I live in Telford but work for a company in Birmingham, if you ever want to grab a coffee I would be more than happy to offer any other advice on refurbs and project management etc.

Hi Kasia, Not sure about the building survey. Ive bought 3 houses and never had one done! Even if they did identify it you would still need to get it removed so i would say you should either get the survey done anyway so that the whole house is covered or use the money for the survey to have it removed. Otherwise you will be paying for a survey to tell you what you already know followed by having to pay for removal. I dont expect that the survey would give a cost but i would estimate about £500. The survey, from my experience large projects would be about £250. These are just rough figures though, it will depend on the amount to be removed etc. Hope that helps. Ben

Hi Ed, I would be happy to help you out if needed. I have properties myself and did a refurbishment with my wife, fully hands on. I work in construction as a project manager so i have experience of executing these types of jobs. Plus i have other professionals on tap, not necessarily in the Norwich area but they can provide guidance, especially with refurbs (they are builders/ property managers). Let me know if thats of any interest! Stevie - not sure if you are also looking but happy to assist if i can. Thanks, Ben

Hi Kasia, I'm surprised no one has replied to this. The first thing is to identify if you have asbestos. A survey is obviously the best starting point but I have never heard anyone do it on a residential property. I work in project management so have done quite a few asbestos surveys. Asbestos is only an issue if it is disturbed and released into the air. Therefore if you aren't doing any major works just painting, decorating, replacing kitchen, bathroom etc. it shouldn't be an issue. You may be able to speak with the local council and see if they offer any services. If the property was ex-council they may have records of previous surveys, maybe a long shot with the council! If you want any advice regarding surveys just let me know, they tend to do either a 'management' survey to identify it or a 'demolition' survey which takes samples and analyses it. Trust me you don't want to be paying for a demolition survey if its not needed! I would therefore just go with a building survey at this stage. If you have major concerns maybe you can push the seller to do one as part of the sale? If you want to discuss further let me know. Thanks, Ben

Hi James, You seem like you have a good balance of risk, which is a positive. Personally what me and my wife have done is calculate the amount of money we would need for 6 months if the following events happened: We both lost our jobs (calculate monthly costs just to survive) All of our properties were empty (no tenants for income) We still had to pay the current BTL mortgages Plus all other costs to keep you in the black. We took this figure and invested it into premium bonds. Yes its low yielding but your money is safe and you have the chance of winning prizes (we have won 3 times already). This means that no matter what happens we have 6 months of funds to keep us going, and lets be honest the chance of all these events happening at the same time are slim. You can then invest freely in property knowing that you have a fixed lump sum which you can withdraw immediately to keep you afloat. Regarding options I voted for number 3, however i would maximise what you can take out of the property, on a 5 year deal, put the cash sum you calculate into premium bonds and invest with the rest. If the worst happens you will always be safe if you have enough cash to avoid having to sell. Just as another tip, what would you rather have, £50,000 in the bank or safe £100 per month on your mortgage? Cash is always the life saver so whilst it might seem like a good idea to overpay a mortgage you cant get your hands on that money until you re-mortgage. Thanks, Ben

Hi Hubbers, Out of interest I am just wondering if anyone would use a project manager to advice and assist you in your property investment. For things such as refurbishments and flips. I have offered up free advice and support on here before and I am very keen to help others, however I have had little response. Is this because people feel they can do all of that work themselves, it would be too costly etc?? It would be interesting to know your thoughts. Just for full disclosure I am a project manager in the day job which is why I am so interested. I want to offer people free project management advice with an option of a paid service for long term help. At a much cheaper rate than a 'consultancy' setup. Would this be of interest to people? Thanks! Ben

Hi All, I have introduced myself on here but that was a while back. Since then I have bought a couple of properties and undertook a completed refurb on one of them (me and my wife getting stuck in). Both currently rented. We have plans for developments in the future, so in the meantime I am looking to increase my network and offer advice and guidance to anyone who needs some. You can find a link to my LinkedIn profile here so that you can get an understanding of what I do on a professional level, I don't currently advertise my investment experience on LinkedIn. As a summary I have a degree in Civil Engineering, member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, I am an NEC3 and NEC4 (type of contract) accredited project manager and have other project management qualifications. I currently manage the contract on a £276m project. I am looking to transition into a full time investor/ developer in the next few years and to aid this id like to get in contact with like minded people and create a network or even a mastermind group. I also have access to a professional property management company who specialise in HMO's in Plymouth. They only work with a small number of clients to provide a bespoke service, rather than just chasing the profits. I can pass their details on if it is of interest. Personally I live in Telford, where I invest. If I can be of help to anyone just let me know, I am more than happy to help, for example: Refurb planning and project management Costing and scheduling Deal analysis Regulations and legislation (working from my own knowledge, not to be taken as advice) Market analysis Contracts You can also make use of my contacts. Many Thanks, Ben

I am a civil engineer and project manager in the construction industry so i have the privilege of doing a job which significantly helps me with development and refurbishments etc. No job too big, it can all be fixed. If anyone wants engineering advice just let me know.

Hi nimmyj, If you look on the HMRC website (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/income-tax-when-you-rent-out-a-property-working-out-your-rental-income) you should get a good explanation, however this is how I see it: Your costs are split into Capital costs and Revenue costs: Capital costs - Cost of buying the property, legal fees, adding an extensions or adding equipment or furnishings which weren't in the property originally. Revenue costs - Estate agent fees, estate agent management fees, insurance, any bills you pay (council tax, gas, electricity etc if the tenant does pay for them), interest on your mortgage (not for long though!). When you are working out your income tax you can offset all of the costs associated with the revenue, as mentioned above, however you can't offset any of the capital costs. When you are looking at the kitchen and bathrooms etc you need to evaluate whether the work is due to you upgrading the property or is it just general maintenance because they are no longer fit for purpose? Regarding the kitchen you also need to think about the number of unit, for example if you currently have 5 units but you are replacing them with 10, you can only claim 50% of the cost as you have upgraded the kitchen with the 5 extra units.......hope that makes sense! Regarding the expenses app I would just use excel, plenty of professional's use it and you can link between tabs etc to keep a summary. Its also worth saying that im not a tax expert so feel free to get my info double checked! Cheers, Ben

Hi Sid, I am going to go straight in here as i would question whether buying in a Ltd company was the right choice for you. I know there are a lot of factors to consider but if you are looking to replace your income them i would look at it from this angle: The tax changes effect everyone who pay income tax (which you will do if you have a rental income), however due to a 20% rebate it actually only effects those on the higher tax band (40% & up). This means that if you are planning to give up the day job your entire income will be from property which means that you could position yourself so that the new tax changes only effect you slightly. For example, once you have given up your day job, and assuming you hold all of your properties in your own name, all of your property income will be taxed as income tax. This means that up to £40k of income (this isn't the exact threshold) will effectively not be effected by the tax changes as it will still be in the basic tax rate of 20% (counteracted by the 20% rebate). The benefit of this is that you are only taxed once and the cashflow is better as it isn't stuck in a company. The negative is that the risk is all yours as you don't have a company to protect you. I am not an expert at this so its always worth getting another opinion. I also believe that if you setup a Ltd company you will be liable for corporation tax (20% but going down). Following this you can then issue yourself with dividends which are currently tax free up to £5k with a 7.5% tax for basic rate tax payers. Just my thoughts but just remember that a company isnt for everyone and i think some people are panicking and setting up companies when in reality they are worse off. Ben

Hi barnowl, To be honest this will come down to what you prefer as an individual. There are so many pro's and con's for either option that it all comes down to what suits you. What i always revert back to is creating a spreadsheet with both option and looking at comparables, for example CGT, income tax, corporation tax, stamp duty etc... The impact on not being able to offset the mortgage interest as an individual is an interesting one as it only really matters if you are paying the higher rate. Personally i have considered having a few in my own name as well as some within a company. Although this might be less efficient for the ones you own personally it does make the funds more accessible. If you have the funds within a company you will pay corporation tax on your profit and then income tax on any money you take out yourself (unless you take the small dividends), which can start to get very expensive. If you want to have access to all of the profits your making then i would say hold them personally, if you just want to leave the money to build then keep it in a company. Ben

Dmac - I think this is the trick that some investors miss when they rent their own place so that they can use all of their funds to make investments. This is an OK strategy but it fails to take into account the additional leverage you can use. If you also bought your first place in a condition that needed renovation it could mean that you get a cheaper property, increase its value, re-mortgage and get all of your investment back out due to a 90% LTV instead of only 75%. So never overlook starting off with your own property as it can actually be a better investment than a BTL. My advice for anyone looking at this thread is to create a spreadsheet which takes into account LTV, deposit required, cost of buying (BTL - V - own home), capital gains tax in the long run, stamp duty, the effects on income tax etc.... the list goes on. One thing to remember is that saving money towards a deposit/ investment is just as valuable. Start off with the basics, set yourself a target for a cash lump sum and while your saving for that review your options. Remember that its easy to get carried away with the upside but dont forget that all the extra leverage can result in losing a lot of money if things go wrong. One example i have is that i looked at moving from our current house (approx £150k) to another house worth approx £300k because the extra capital growth would give greater returns, however when i looked at the extra interest being paid every month versus the large sums we were knocking off the mortgage as it was, i determined that the benefit would be mostly lost, and that's without taking into account the cost of moving etc. So its not always black and white. Ben

Hi Fox, Episodes are available on the 'Podcast' page, i have included the links below. Part 1 - http://thepropertyhub.net/tpp097-become-property-investor-part-one/ Part 2 - http://thepropertyhub.net/tpp098-become-property-investor-part-2/ Part 3 - http://thepropertyhub.net/tpp099-become-property-investor-part-3/ Hopefully thats what you are looking for?? Ben