Now, landlords may not know this actual piece of news, but at the start of every tenancy you should always provide your new tenant with a How to Rent Guide. You can find the How to Rent Guide on the internet. Always ensure that you get evidence from them to state that they’ve received it. The reason that you need …

Now you may or may not know that the government is planning to bring it in as legislation that all people who work in the lettings industry must have a qualification. I personally think that this is a great idea and at JP Hay we’re all trained in the National Federation of Property Professionals Standards and my team are expected …

Stamp duty abolished for some first time buyers – and rates relief for retail. Yesterday’s Budget speech didn’t include many dramatic new measures to boost the property sector but we certainly welcome the Chancellor’s first time buyers’ stamp duty abolition on shared ownership homes valued at up to 500,000. This is a good way to get normal working families into …

As we all know in this day and age, many people do lots and lots of things online, as opposed to back in the day when they used to go strolling around the estate agents’ looking for properties to rent or to buy. Now it’s all predominantly done by their mobile phone, or it’s done at home when they’re on …

This week’s blog is about Airbnb, and an issue that we’ve recently had with one of our own landlords. So, what happened was a tenant took the property, as normal, they sent through all the checks, they signed a tenancy agreement, and then ultimately, what they’ve been doing since then is providing the apartment as an Airbnb apartment. This has …

Whilst we are all in agreement that void periods should be kept to a minimum, it is extremely important that your property is a place where your next tenant walks into and it feels like home. I do appreciate that cost can play a factor when it comes to the renewal of a tenancy and sometimes landlords may want to …

At JP Hay we have had situations, where tenants presume that they can leave the property at the end of the tenancy and use the deposit as their last month’s rent. This is despite the fact of clearly explaining to the tenant what the deposit was for at the beginning of the tenancy. Unless pre agreed at the start of …

There are many advantages and disadvantages to offering a long term tenancy (i.e. longer than 12 months) If you do decide to offer your tenant a long term tenancy agreement, it should only be for a maximum of three years. Anything longer than a three year period,  and the tenancy goes from an Assured short hold tenancy (AST) to a …