stevie-s

Hi all, I'm about to start my 3rd refurb. One thing I've always struggled with as somebody who has no trade experience is the order of which we should be doing the refurb. I know this is quite a broad question and each property will have its own idiosyncrasies but is there a general rule to this? For example: 1. Walk around 2. Quotes 3. Rip out 4. EICR 5. First fix etc etc I know this is a pretty basic question, but everything's easy when you know how! Thanks

Hi all, I've recently completed on my 3rd BTL. There is a void in the living room which we have opened up as we thought it was dead space and wanted to extend the living area. When we have opened the void we have found an old fashioned copper boiler (the house has evidence of an old fashioned heating system with vents in the walls). Now I'm assuming this will be extremely expensive to remove as its asbestos. Legally, am I able to just board over the void as it was before and basically forget it ever happened or do I have to now do something about it as a landlord? Once plastered it will not be accessible to the tenant and the boiler is not in use. Thanks,

Thanks for the advice, food for thought. Much appreciated as always.

I'm in the process of completing on my 3rd single let. Buying with tenant in situ for first time. Tenant has been in for 10 years and never had a rent increase. Rent is therefore now far lower than it should be. Current landlord is getting £450pcm. A 3 bed terrace in this area is £550 in poor condition and around £625/650 refurbed. On completion I plan to increase the rent to £525, as I feel its unfair to put it straight up by £100. The tenant is a single parent with 3 children in receipt of housing benefit and by all accounts is a decent tenant who has never been in arrears. Any advice from landlords who have had similar situations would be appreciated. I feel like we are going to start on the wrong foot, but I'm obviously not a charity either! Property is let on a standard rolling AST. I'm assuming it's just a case of completing and then giving one months written notice of the rent increase? Was going to mention in the letter that the increase is to bring the rent in line with current council rates in the area (which it is). Thanks

I have a trampoline which is sunk into the floor in the back garden. My tenant has just got in touch to say his daughter has ‘went through the material’, basically it’s now broken. He’s asking whether it’s for him to replace or me. I’ve never had this situation before obviously. I’m not expecting him to replace it, but equaually I don’t want to either. It’s probably a hazard with them having children though. I’ve attached a photo. Any advice would be appreciated, I’m not sure what to do . Thanks, Stevie

I actually used to live in a 2 bed in Mann Island before I started investing in property. I bought in Jan 2014 for £175k. Sold in October 2016 for £210k. Interestingly, looking at sold prices they don't seem to have moved much since then. What I would say is this - I wish I would have been able to afford to keep the property as an investment. At the time I needed the capital to move up the ladder. But Mann Island is in a fantastic location and in my opinion will be a really good investment in the medium/long term. Liverpool is still comparatively cheap compared to other cities in the UK and has a lot going for it with much more development planned along the waterfront. I wouldn't stress that you haven't seen much capital growth yet, if you're in it for the long term does it matter? You asked how have other properties have performed... I have a 4 bed semi in L37 which I paid £335k for in 2017, it's just been valued at £425k. So prices in some areas on Merseyside are definitely seeing more capital growth than others. But again, I'm in it for the long term, so its just a number. I really wouldn't sweat about it, especially if they yield well as you say. I'd love to still have my old place on Mann Island!!

I'm an expat living in Qatar. I would highly recommend Liquid Expat (google them). I tried a few different brokers who were all recommended to me, none specialised in expats and all really struggled to find anything decent. Liquid Expat gave me a number of good options. If you DM me I'm happy to share contact details of the guy I used.

I've messaged you Michael

I have a tenancy agreement until June on my property. I currently receive £1,650 for the property, it is let through a letting agent. The tenants have just requested to leave the property in April. They have been refusing to do a virtual inspection, so I have no idea what state the property is in. The letting agent has said it is best to try and come to a compromise with the tenants as it will go to a small claims court if they leave without permission. The letting agent has suggested letting them end the tenancy early but making them pay the reletting fee. The issue with this is I'm going to take the property back and self manage it. So there won't be a reletting fee as such, I will be using openrent which is only £49 anyway. Would you ask for compensation in another way? One months extra rent and you can go for example? I'm just after some advice really, I've never had this situation before. I'm obviously going to end up out of pocket as there is now going to be a void period once the tenants leave, I will probably need to redecorate and have a month with no rent coming in etc. Can this get messy if we do refuse to let them leave? For example they reported a garage door fault last year which we haven't sorted, but there was a contractor due to go out this week. Could they use that against us in a small claims court? Thanks

I've just used openrent for my first BTL and the process was simple. They took my property down less than 48 hours after it went live after I had 106 viewing requests, I could not believe it. It cost me the grand total of £49, then £20 per tenant to reference.

Thanks David, very helpful.

I'm an expat living in the middle east, I do not pay income tax here in Qatar but file tax returns for my two properties in the UK which are under mine and my Wife's name. I plan to buy a number of other BTL properties over the next few years whilst living in Qatar, before eventually return to the UK. It has been suggested to me that it may be more tax efficient in the long run to buy any future properties under a ltd company. When I return to the UK I will be a higher rate tax payer but my wife will not. Does anybody have any advice? I'm beginning to look for my next property and obviously want to structure any future purchases as efficiently as possible. I already feel I may have made a mistake by not buying my last property under a ltd company. Thanks

Hi, I'm in the process of buying my first BTL in Liverpool. Does anybody have a BTL income/expenditure spreadsheet that they are willing to share? I've attempted to make my own, but I'm absolutely hopeless on Excel. Thanks, Stevie

That's great. Thanks for your help.

I’m an expat and currently rent out one property, I have approval for the non resident landlord scheme from HMRC for this property. I’m in the process of buying another property, do I need to request approval from HMRC for every property I buy? Or will the original approval suffice? Thanks