UK Landlord Forum / Life

I wonder if you could advise me?

I'm a novice to the investment business and have yet to buy my first property so I'd be grateful for the wealth of your experience out there.
My first predicament comes from renting out my own property whilst living abroad. I have many questions about this but maybe the'rs a good link you know as to all the rules and regulations I need to comply with. In the meantime perhaps you could help with this one. If I advertise the tenancy as all inclusive bills, which it appears tenants prefer, how do I ensure they don't take the mick and have the heating on 24/7 and basically totally disregard the cost of gas & electricity. There must be some ways to quantify resonable usage.
Thanks for your help in anticipation.
Phil

Hello Sofasisters,

If you offer bills inclusive then the bill is in your name and you are legally responsible for payment.  Living abroad makes it difficult for you to take a hands on approach.

If I were you, I'd never think of offering bills inclusive.  If things went wrong, I'd be too far away to influence the situation and could too easily find that loads of bad things had alredy happened by the time I first learned what was going on.

Like Jeremy, I too wouldn't offer bills inclusive. It will be very attractive to the tenant but far too risky for you.

However if you must, I would suggest capping costs with a fair usage policy. Another suggestion could be to change the gas and electric to pay as you go meters, so tenants only pay for what they use. This does work out more expensive and the tenant may find it annoying, but it covers your back at least.

Good idea Mr X about the PAYG meters.  Depending on whether sofasisters has an up- or down-market place.

But just one word of warning.  Read the small print.  A friend converted to PAYG meters.  Then the house got damp problems and the tenant left.  The damp turns out to be due to some awful bodge by a previous owner and it takes months to sort out properly.

Why is this relevent to PAYG meters?  There's a 'standing charge' of a few pounds a day, even if no electricity is being used.  Normal tarrifs have no formal standing charge amount so the electric is free when the house is unused.  It cost my friend over a hundred pounds a month to have his house standing empty, using no electric.  And they would not let him convert it back to a normal tarrif because they knew he was a non-resident landlord.

There's loads of deals out there, so just check to make sure you won't get burned if you have an unexpecetedly long void period.

Jeremy,

It's not a few pounds per day, actually it's more like a few pounds per month. If you ever run into someone where their PAYG meter is charging that much money in addition to units consumed, then that's because it has been set up like that. Utility companies offer that as a service, that their meters charge extra and the excess is credited to the landlords account.