Hello everyone
We are renting our house out and moving abroad for an undetermined time. We’ve had an offer to rent the house from a Property Manager who manages property for nurses for a local hospital. Offering 3-5 yr long term contract; property management and cleans; ‘hands-free’ landlording and guarantee the rent.
Does anyone have experience of renting to this sort of company. Any downsides?
Thanks in advance
If this is in Teesside, I think I might know who that is!
What you’re effectively doing there is entering into a lease agreement. That is a completely different kind of agreement than most people deal with on here and I would suggest you need to get a solicitor exprienced in property leases to check over the contract if you want to go ahead with it. I have one property leased but I know the company extremely well having rented another property through them for a decade prior to entering a lease agreement.
If you’ve a mortgage, you’re going to need your mortgage co to approve this kind of arrangement. You will probably still be responsible for the outside of the building so will need to maintain that and also get insurance to cover that (and the insurance co will need to know that it’s a lease).
One downside is that your place could be completely trashed. You’re effectively signing over your asset to someone else while leaving the country. You therefore cannot hold them accountable during the periods you’re overseas. Your lease should contain clauses that bind the leaseholder to return it to you in the state they found it, but enforcing that might require legal action to recover money they owe if you have to completely refurb it when you return.
Another more serious downside is that you have issues with this person not paying you for whatever reason. How you hold them accountable for this when you’re overseas is tricky. With a typical letting agent, you’ve got a redress scheme to appeal to if they misbehave, with a lease to an individual or sole trader company, you’ve get less to lean on if things go badly.
Thanks, appreciate the info!