Our guide to inspecting your property
Let it and forget it, where you hand over the keys and watch the monthly rental income drop into your bank account for the next few months, or if you’re lucky, years, sounds like a great idea for a passive investment in theory.
But the reality is somewhat different. Prudent landlords safeguard their investments by having a regular tenancy inspection regime at the start of a tenancy, at periodic intervals during the tenancy and when a tenancy ends.
Regular inspections are also a requirement of most landlord insurance policies and buy to let mortgage agreements, so they make practical sense. With a new let you want to be assured that the tenants are looking after the property. So initially you need to keep a close eye on what’s going on. Later on as you develop trust and can see that everything is going smoothly and the property is being looked after, then you can relax your close monitoring a little.
A degree of sensitivity is needed when entering a tenant’s home to do inspections. Tenants can feel vulnerable, even threatened by having someone enter their home to inspect. Some may react aggressively, especially if openly criticised.
That’s why it’s sometimes wise for landlords to use an independent third party to carry out inspections – an agent or an inventory clerk. Whether you choose to appoint a third party or carry out inspections yourself, it’s a good idea to familiarise yourself with what’s involved.
It’s also important to remember that if a landlord enters their rental property without permission they are putting themselves at risk of being accused of trespass and harassment – we’ll cover this in more detail shortly. Skip ahead to the sections you want to learn more about using the menu on the next page.