UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi,

I recently purchased a house which has a self contained 1 bed annexe which I'm hoping to start renting out. The annexe itself is connected to the main building but there is no connecting door from the main house to the annexe. I have a few questions around if I need to do work to the property which I was hoping someone could help me with.

The annexe is all electric, electric rads and an immersion heater for water. The annexe is connected to the power supply from the main house, there is already a sub meter in place, the old owners used to use it as a holiday let.


I guess my questions around this are:

1, Should I install a separate power supply to the property? This will give it its own postal address and mean if the tenant leaves a radiator etc on then I wont affect my electric bill. However I assume that as I own the property if they decide not to pay then it'll be down to me anyway.

2, Should I change the heating system to put in an LPG boiler and rads? Do tenants readily accept electric radiators and immersion heaters? The estate agents I've spoken to seem to think all electric is not a problem but my guess is they just want to get it on the books and rented to someone(anyone) asap.

Thanks,
Gareth

Not trying to be an intentionally crap answer but some people will accept that heating and others won't.  The ones who won't hopefully wouldn't even bother viewing the property so your time shouldn't be wasted.  It's not like there is no heating there it's just a different system which some will be use to and have no problem with.

With regards to the electricity and bills I'd want to be taking some sort of advance payment of these with a monthly refund/adjustment depending on the usage to cover yourself.  Not sure how this would be written though.

Thanks Riptide. I guess its kind of a silly question. I do wonder if electrically heated places are more difficult to rent or rent for less?

Thats a good idea about advance payments on the electric, I'll see how that fits with the tenancy agreement. It could be worded that the rent covers x kWh of electric and the adjustment would follow after the meter reading was taken. 

Quote from: GW on February 16, 2015, 01:20:29 PM
Thanks Riptide. I guess its kind of a silly question. I do wonder if electrically heated places are more difficult to rent or rent for less?

It's a 1 bed annexe which is immediately putting you in a niche market.  It's not like there is going to be 15 of them in the locality that the T can pick and chose from based on heating and price.  It'll suit someone in particular down to the ground and immediately be discounted by a very large percentage of people looking for something apart from a 1 bed annexe.

You can get £1 coin meters to put in before the Consumer unit in the Annex.

They pay as they go then.

I use them.

They are a pain in the Arse to empty etc, but you can set your own rate. In effect this could be cheaper for them, if you set it at your unit rate ( you take all the standing charge) or you try and get more... personally I would keep it as low as you can so they can afford to heat it.

Also electric heating. You need a thermostat controlled Radiator in the Bedroom kept on constant and on about 15c, same in the lounge, but provide an additional convector heater, 1.5 to 2 kw, for instant warm up heat. Tell Tenants its going to cost them £40 a week to run these.

Do yourself a favour and put up as much insulation, and draft excluders as you can. Fit Thermal black out blinds. Make sure all bulbs are energy efficient ones.

Overall try and get a 4 night a week tenant, you will get less hassle that way, this sort of set up is not going to be that easy a proposition for a long term rental.

Quote from: GW on February 16, 2015, 11:03:35 AMHowever I assume that as I own the property if they decide not to pay then it'll be down to me anyway.

If you have a separate supply and billing set up, then this is not correct... just because you own the property would not make you liable for a non-paying Tenant's bills. The bill is theirs.

Obviously, with a non-separate supply, you have no choice at all and the risk is that they would not pay you, I guess... but they'd probably not be paying you anything if that happened so maybe you'd have bigger things to worry about?

Personally, I'm not a fan of any kind of "bills included" set up. I always get the Tenants to sort everything out themselves, in their own name... electricity, gas, water, Council Tax, TV licence, broadband... it's a hassle ensuring you take all the readings you need to and communicating with the Councils (especially) is always tiresome, but at least I know what I need to do each time and it's done and everything is in the Tenant's name for the duration of their stay.

Thanks for the advice BOBOFF & HIPPOGRIFF.  I will check the electric radiators I believe both of them have thermostats. I'm going to get UK power networks to put in a separate electric supply in to keep things as simple as possible. The only thing I'm not planning to make separate is the water supply, I'm guessing this would be very costly to install. Power will be easier as it is delivered overhead so no one has to dig the road up as they would with the water.