landlord – Page 2

July 17, 2012

Property Infographic: Landlords and Property Management

Rentview are always busy looking to provide some useful information to the rental market and our latest Infographic looks at some of the key trends/issues landlords are facing with their rental properties today. Take a look at our findings.

Now some quick notes on the data and areas for discussion :

Bank transfer is the most common payment method with over half of the landlords surveyed collecting the rent this way. Just under 30% are using a standing order to deduct the amount each month while 14% still physically collect the rent from their tenants. Which is easiest in your opinion?

Our next question we quizzed the landlords on was their experience in collecting the rental payments. Almost half (43%) of landlords have experienced some sort of difficulty in collecting rent. Definitely a worrying statistic which raises the question of quality of referencing tenants?

Following on from my point on the quality of referencing we questioned our landlord database on the various formats they use for issuing a reference to a tenant. Not surprisingly e-mail has taken over from some of the previously popular formats like phone and written.

A big area we wanted to analyse was how the landlord communicates with their tenants for management of the property. This is a big area in which Rentview help agencies save time and reduce the no of hours they have that phone held to their ear! Coming out on top was landlords who call their tenants and those who have hired an agent on their behalf to manage the tenant and the property. I have always been a conscious of using the phone when dealing with important tenant/landlord issues as it is in no way traceable if there was ever to be a disagreement.

And finally the stuff most of us don’t want to hear, how many landlords have had to issue legal notices to their tenants on rents unpaid. Unfortunately one fourth of the landlords have issued a rent arrears or eviction notice.

For more information on Rentview you can click here , and connect with Rentview on Facebook and twitter @Rentview_ .

by Andreas Riha

July 4, 2012

Infographic: Tenants and Landlords Property Management

Tenants and Landlords Property Management

Welcome to the very first infographic from Rentview. We’re always looking at new ways to provide content for the property management industry and we have started with this analysis on tenants who are currently living in rented accommodation. From our survey of renters in Ireland, here are some of the interesting facts and figures we discovered 🙂

tenants and landlords property management

Some quick notes on the figures above for tenants and landlords property management:

Firstly the rent collection process from landlords or agents is quite varied, from physically collecting the rent from the tenant to transferring the money via online banking. Standing order, one of the cheapest methods and more efficient for collecting a tenant’s rent placed third in the list of options, which do you think works best?

Interestingly a whopping 74% currently do not receive a receipt for their rental payments. I have always requested a receipt from my landlord when paying to ensure there is no possible reason for disagreements over moneys paid throughout the year, and secondly its a great form of reference to apply for credit in the future. What’s your opinion?

Our third section is slightly worrying for me, as over 50% of the 100 tenants we surveyed noted difficulties in contacting their property manager or landlord throughout their tenancy. I personally would wonder how any agency is going to consistently maintain there tenant base when they are facing such issues.

Finally we questioned the renters of Ireland on their experiences in securing a rent reference after their tenancy, most landlords and agents were happy to give out references promptly to their tenants (44%) while only 24% had difficulty in securing a reference.

Other infographics you might like-

Landlords and property management infographic

The Dublin rental market infographic

by Andreas Riha

July 2, 2012

Rent collection within your letting agency

So you want to streamline the rent collection service you are offering within your agency?

Having administration problems collecting rental payments from your tenants? Are tenants dropping by your office and paying cash in rent or worse still, are you dropping by the late properties and collecting rental payments from tenants? Administration and time-consuming nightmare!

Are you aware that as of July 6^th 2012 the Property Services (Regulation) Act 2011 states that your client’s account needs to be totally transparent and audited at the year’s end? Have you the correct paper trail put in place to track everything?

So apart from the headaches in collecting rental payments in cash and lodged by tenants in cash, there is also a significant cost in doing this. This is a great opportunity for you to streamline the rental management side of your business.

There are a number of steps needed to be taken in order to streamline the rent collection service:

1. Client’s Rental account. This is a must and the very first step which needs to be taken. If you do not have a rental client’s account, get in contact with your bank manager and set one up. This is quite an easy process and your bank will be happy to facilitate this.

2. Banking online. If you do not use banking online yet, get it set up immediately and have the ability to access the rental client’s account.

3. Set up a launch date to have your tenants pay into your rental client account. If you have a number of tenants that pay directly into your office or lodge in cash to your rental account who are mid-lease, inform them of the changes being launched. Set a realistic launch date. Say perhaps 6 weeks away. This should give ample time for tenants to set up a standing order from their bank accounts to yours. This may not be to every tenant’s liking, but it’s essential for your business. Not only does it cost you when you or tenants lodge in cash(typically .5% of a lodgement is a charge) but it’s unsafe and an administration nightmare.

4. Issue your tenants with a standing order and ensure they return it to you signed and referenced. The standing order should have a start date (at the latest their second next payment due) and a end date (the end date should be the 11 month of the lease i.e if the lease if up on the 1st of September then the last rental payment should be the 1^st of August). A standing order can run without an end date also. It is essential to have the rental payment referenced. The receivers reference is what needs to be filled out on the standing order so once the payment reaches your account you know what it is for. Rentview issue a lease code for each lease you are managing. The lease code is an 8 digit code mixed of letters and numbers (which will never be duplicated). You may also want to use the first line of address but this may be duplicated in time. Lastly, submit the standing order with the tenant’s bank. This can be done by post or by handing it into a branch.

You can fill out a standing order form for a tenant and get the forms from a branch of a bank or online. Here is an example of a Standing order form from AIB. Remember you need to get the tenant to sign this.

You may also use a white labelled standing order form as seen here.

rent-collection

5. Setting up new properties with a rental management collection. This is very similar to above. Typically the first monthly payment is paid up front with the deposit on signing of the lease. If this is the case, the first payment collected via the standing order would be for the 2^nd rental payment (if the lease was signed on the 1^st of July the 1st payment collected via standing order shall be the 1^st of august)

6. Monitoring the payments. For effective rental management, the client’s account should be checked every day a rental payment is due or if payments are outstanding. Once a payment is made, the rent should be forwarded to your landlord’s rent account. This should be preferably done electronically through online banking (more efficient and it costs less than issuing a cheque). Any deductions and management fees should be withheld. All in-house fees should be transferred weekly to the business account. It is good practice to clear the clients rental account weekly to “0” or just the holding of rental deposits. In most cases, a second client’s deposit account should be set up to hold these.

7. Rental payment receipts. As payments are received electronically, a rent receipt should be issued to the tenant in line with the tenancies act. Through Rentview, as you process payments as ‘received’, your tenant is automatically sent a rent receipt via email.

8. Non-paying tenants. If a tenant fails to pay on time, the tenant should be contacted and after a grace period of say 3 working days, a rent arrears notice should be issued. This is best industry practice and should be enough of a deterrent for the tenant to pay on time in the future. The longer a tenant does not pay and no rent arrears notice is issued, the longer the agency is exposing the landlord to potential losses. The Rentview system will automatically generate the rent arrears notice in line with the Tenancies Act 2004.

9. Landlord’s accounts & end of year statement. A copy of the landlord’s accounts which shows all deductions and invoices should be kept for the landlord at all times. Through Rentview your landlord will be able to access their accounts at any stage, once given access by your agency. If you do not wish to give landlords access, the accounts can be printed off at any stage.

As always we would love to hear your feedback on this topic. Is there a topic you would like discussed?

by Andreas Riha

June 26, 2012

Information Systems Planning for Letting Agents Part Two

Continuing on from last weeks post where we discussed the placement that software programs may have in an agencies overall strategy today we begin to look at the five steps of the IS (Information Systems) plan which is adapted from Gabrielle Piccoli book on Information Systems for Managers.

Step One: Know who you are, strategic business planning.

Always ensure there is a long term plan for the overall direction of the agency before developing your IS plan. Software is an enabler of such plans, for example as an agency you may want to grow the business to a stage where you will require more offices/branches. In this case you may pursue a software package that is going to help catch tenants and landlords attention and improve the value you provide to your customer. On the flip side your costs may be badly affecting profits so you may be in pursuit of a system which will significantly reduce administration costs such as printing and accounts management. So you have an idea of why you need the software now its time for step two.

Step two: Know where you start: Information Systems Assessment

Once the agency has a clear grasp on the role of software in the organisation we must assess the current situation your letting agent is in. So there is a few key things we do here, firstly note the different types of software or hardware you use to manage data. Is Microsoft excel your one stop shop for accounts? Is all written communication with landlords done via you E-mail account etc? How are sales calls and service calls recorded and managed? Where are invoices stored and managed and so on? Basically you want to access the role systems even as basic as Microsoft word are working for your agency and especially to access if they’re effective in terms of the business strategy.

Thats the technical side of the assessment but don’t forget the people. Planning for the use of IS or software programs always involves four things people,technology,process and structure, each interlinked for ensuring efficient use of IS or software programs. Question your staff members or in the case of an individual running an agency on the use of such systems and what they may lack or require to help you. For example you may have the latest accounts management system for dealing with all your inbound and outbound payments but if the staff are struggling to use the system then it may not be effective for the business. I have often heard of payments being missed by an agent or landlord due to basic mismanagement of information where the software didn’t ensure payments are received etc, there is numerous other things you may notice at this point. All of this then leads to the main step which is creating the vision for IS in the agency, that will be discussed in the next blog 🙂 Please comment with your thoughts and share if you found this useful or interesting.

Information systems planning for letting agents part one

by Rentview

May 21, 2012

Cloud Computing for Property Letting /Management

Cloud computing is very much in vogue at the moment. It’s one of the latest “buzz” phrases in business today. But what is it? How can it help you as a property manager?

Simply put, cloud computing is the applications and services offered over the internet. Resources, software, information are shared and delivered as a service. All data and documents are stored on a server. It is not locked to any one device or operating system; it can be accessed by any device that has an internet connection.

Some benefits include:

It’s cheap – no hardware/software upgrades, installation fees etc., all you need is an internet connection
Great Storage capacity
Maintenance is provided by the seller
Flexible – accessible anywhere at any time

There are a vast amount of vendors to choose from for property management applications, Rentview being one of them. With Rentview, a single click of the mouse can inform both the landlord and tenant that rent has been received, send the latter a receipt and update the accounts. All records can be accessed instantly, there’s no need to frantically search the filing cabinet for the relevant document. There’s also an inventory facility, allowing pictures to be uploaded and text to be entered which can go a long way in solving a dispute at the end of the tenancy. It reduces the stress and hassle that comes with managing a property by storing the data in an easily accessible place. Visit the website rentview.com to find out more.

You may also enjoyreading – Landlords accounts and maintaining them

by Andreas Riha

May 1, 2012

Final inspection and return of your tenants deposit

So your tenant has just moved out and wants to get their security deposit back. Well just before you do this there are a number of steps to follow to insure everything is in order and the tenant gets the correct amount due.

Inspect the property. This is best done once the tenant has moved out and preferably in your own time rather than the tenant walking around the property with you. You may have built a relationship up with the tenant and having them follow you around whilst looking through the property can be difficult to give a thorough inspection. A couple of pointers here is to check everything for anything above normal wear and tear. Move the furniture about slightly and make sure nothing is wrong with the flooring i.e iron burn mark on carpet caused by a tenant ironing clothes on the floor. Check on both sides of a sofas removable cushion, a common area for liquid stains. Check behind any pictures or posters that were not there before , these can be typically placed to hide any holes or major scuffs on walls.

You might get benefit from reading a previous blog on Wear and tear in a rental property

Inventory. Make sure to go through the inventory, it may appear to have everything in place but its always best to check. If you have no inventory done on this letting make sure to have one on the next letting. (Check out our previous blog on inventory)

Utility readings and accounts being closed. So the tenant has been kind enough to close and forward their account to their new property, excellent but make sure the correct readings were given. Just because a closing bill has been produced it doesn’t mean the readings were accurate; open your meter and double check. A couple of hundred units below the correct readings and this could cost you around €50. Call the utility company and double check.

How to read your electric bill

Waste collection. Similar to that of the utilities some waste collection companies invoice in arrears and they won’t forward the bill on with the previous tenant. They want full payment or no collection of your waste next time around. Waste collection blog

Rental payments up to date. Cross check all your payments received and insure that they tally with all that is due. Sometimes it can be easy to assume that because the tenant paid in full every month when you checked that he continues to do it when you don’t. Rent payment blog

Returning the deposit should be done as promptly as possible for your tenants and the PRTB states it should be done in a speedy fashion. The time limit without a dispute is 2 weeks but this should be ideally done within 48 hours of a tenant leaving the property. This should give you more than enough time to go through everything and more than likely in today’s climate your tenant will be deepening on it.

Whilst some of the above may seem excessive to some it all comes from experience as a property manager and all of the above areas of caution have come up many times.

As always please feel free to comment, share, tweet or follow us

Thanks for reading!!

by Andreas Riha

Letting agency software

April 26, 2012

Rent Arrears Notice

The rent is late; there’s no sign of it being paid and you can’t get in contact with the tenant. What can you do? Depending on the relationship with the tenant, a gentle written reminder stating that it is late and providing contact details may be enough. Unfortunately, many times this won’t be the case and you may have to go down the route of issuing a 14 day rent arrears notice.

Residential Tenancies Act

Under the Residential Tenancies Act 2004, this notice must be in written form, specify the date the notice is served, the amount of rent due that has not been paid and if the amount isn’t paid with 14 days of the date of receiving the notice, a 28 day notice of termination may be issued. The safest way to issue this is through registered post, but there is an easier alternative. Rentview will automatically generate this notice for you and sent it to the tenant at the appropriate time, taking the hassle out of drafting the document and sending it. Visit the website for this and many other services.

Here is an example of a rent arrears notice

You also might be interested in –

PRTB Adjudication process & Rent payment issues and tenants

Please feel free to comment, share, tweet or follow us.

Thanks for reading!

by Andreas Riha

April 23, 2012

Parking in apartments

Parking Permits

Parking permits are the norm for parking in apartment complexes nowadays. The introduction of parking permits in apartments was necessary to reduce the possibility of people parking in the wrong space or a space that is reserved for someone else.

Property management companies

Property management companies benefit from parking permits in apartments in a couple of ways, below are the main ones.

Collecting management fees

If a property’s management fees were not paid, a parking permit would not be issued by the property management company. If the property was a let property, the tenant faced the possibility of clamping and as a result the pressure was placed on the landlord to pay the fee or face an empty rental property.

Managing Illegal parking

If parking within some complexes is not enforced, it can lead to illegal parking which is both dangerous and a problem. Think of cars parked on paths and corners which block pedestrians’ view of crossing. One of the serious pet hates amongst many drivers is double space parkers such as below.

No permit

For an apartment complex with a greater number of car parking spaces, for a number of properties an agent could be tempted to not organise a permit. Before an agent does this they should consider this situation – the agent lets the apartment and the tenant moves in happily. The next day the agent receives a phone call from the tenants saying they have been clamped, and there’s a fine waiting to be paid. The tenant could potentially leave the agency liable for the clamping fine, or the tenant could argue that the landlord should pay. Sounds like quite a mess, doesn’t it?

Here are a few of solutions. Firstly, don’t move the tenants in until you are sure that there’s a fully paid permit in place. Or if the tenants are eager to move in and there is no permit available as yet, explicitly state in the contract that this is the case and give the date one is expected to be received. Also include who should pay the fine if the tenant is clamped in the interim.

Clamping fines

Fines will vary from £20-£180 depending on the location and the clamping companies policy. Some other changes include banning clamping in hospitals, introducing a two-tier appeals process, providing more ways of paying the fine and having a register of clamping operators. These operators can be quite difficult to deal with, as your situation isn’t as important to them as getting the fine paid.

Image Credit EllBrown

On street parking

County councils offer parking permits to residents for on-street parking, enquire with your council to see if you qualify. As a landlord, tenant or managing agent you can apply to your county or town council for on-street parking permits. Each council differs in its requirements so contact your local council to see if you qualify.

You might also be interested in Keeping a tenant happy

by Andreas Riha

April 18, 2012

Preparing a rental property

Showings are a key part of the rental process, they allow potential tenants to get a good feel of the property, which goes a long way in helping them decide whether to rent or not. They can also be a handy tenant screening process to find out which potential tenants match the landlord’s requirements. Showings are generally easier when the property is currently vacant as it gives more time to prepare. Try to arrange all showings for the same day so no time is wasted, but make sure the times are staggered so there’ll be no overlap. If the property is occupied then this may be more difficult.

Preparing a rental property

Before the showing: Make sure the property is in tip top shape. This will mean notifying the landlord of any damages/repairs needed, possibly arranging carpenters, plumbers etc. to fix problem areas. The property will need to be cleaned from top to bottom which the landlord may be happy to do, or they may require the services of a professional cleaning company. Freshen up the walls and floors if they’re looking dull with some new paint or a proper cleaning. Repainting can have the wonderful effect of re-energising a room and making it look brand new. Again, this will all need the go ahead from the landlord. Don’t forget to mention any problems with the exterior of the property or the garden.

If needs be, get in a professional cleaning company. There are lots of cleaning companies specialising in end of tenancy cleaning which will help in preparing a rental property for showing.

On the day of the showing: Do a last minute check to make sure everything is satisfactory. If there are any unpleasant smells, eradicate them with an air freshener spray or some incense. Make sure the property is well-lit; open curtains and turn on lights if necessary. Prepare to answer all questions to the best of your ability. This will mean knowing the property and the area inside out, as potential tenants are bound to have many questions for you.

If there are tenants currently living in the property: If you have built a good relationship with the tenants then there should be no problem in asking them to do a bit of cleaning and tidying before the showing. There should also be no problem in asking them to vacate the property to allow the showing to take place. This is the ideal, and we all know that tenants can be problematic. If they are letting you down during showings then you must talk to them. Explain why the property needs to look a certain way and politely ask them to make sure it’s that way in future. If there’s no improvement, provide some sort of incentive for them, like a voucher for a restaurant or a reduction in the last month’s rent. If that doesn’t work, it may be time to get the PRTB involved.

You might also be interested in the following blog – Choosing the right tenant and managing your rental payments

Please feel free to comment or add on preparing a rental property, tweet or follow us.

by Andreas Riha

April 10, 2012

Tenant reference check questions

As much as landlords want their property rented and off the market, they want the right tenant and not one that will end up costing them more than if they left the property empty.

Reference checking is one way to ensure an A+ tenant rents the property. There are three key reference sources; bank/building society, employer and previous landlord. While confidentiality clauses will prevent detailed information from being discussed, banks can provide proof of financial stability and capability to pay. Similarly, employers can provide financial information that indicates a tenant’s ability to pay.

Employment Reference

A typical rule of thumb would for the rent not exceed the tenant(s) income by 35%. Aside from financial information, employers can provide personal information; what is the tenant like to work with, confirmation of details such as current address, job position etc.

Landlord reference

Possibly the most important reference is the one from a previous landlord. This will provide you with key information that may make or break an agreement. A few questions will reveal what rent was paid, if it was paid on time and what the person was like as a tenant.

Some useful tenant reference check questions to ask:

Was the tenant unreasonable in any way?
Why did the tenant move out?
How long did the tenant rent the property?
Was the rent paid on time?
Would you rent to this person again?
Were there any complaints from other tenants?
Did they cause any major maintenance issues?

What are the tenant reference check questions you would ask?

by Andreas Riha