Whether you are looking to join the buy-to-let market or simply to rent your property for a limited time, you will need a letting agent. A quick search for ‘how to choose a letting agent’ will turn up hundreds of articles with detailed tips on how best to go about it, but the basics are always the same.
Firstly, you need to choose an agent who has an office local to your property. This will ensure that the agent knows the area, and may well have let similar properties to yours in the past. If you ask they should be willing to show you details of these properties. They will have an idea of the level of rent you can expect and maybe even have a tenant in mind. You might want to ask them how many properties they currently have in their portfolio and how many are occupied and the average length of time before a tenant is found, just to get an idea of the scale of their operation.
A professionally registered agent is a necessity, especially if you are going to be an absentee landlord. They will be familiar with all the standard tasks inherent in renting and may even have a network of local tradesmen to call on for repairs and renovations. Professional bodies also have standard codes of conduct, legal requirements and guarantees to ensure that landlords and tenants are both treated fairly. A professionally qualified agent will be able to handle all the tenant checks and paperwork associated with a letting as well as the annual compulsory certifications. They will not mind showing you proof of their qualifications and professional memberships either; in fact these certificates may even be on display in their office. Another advantage of professional letting agents is that they will have a range of schemes to ensure that money collected on behalf of their landlords is handled and transferred safely. They will be able to show you their client money protection scheme arrangements, client account setup and tenancy deposit scheme for registering initial deposits as well as explaining their procedures for collecting rent arrears. There will be a schedule of fees you should expect to pay in certain situations, and a good agent will have a clear list of what is chargeable and when. These could cover tenancy renewal or termination, inspections, inventory preparation and advertising.
The more you want your agent to do for you, the more you will have to pay them, naturally. For absentee landlords this is useful, as it means they have an option for the agent to handle all the day-to-day running of the lease, but for others this may be too involved. The most basic level of service is where a letting agent simply finds a tenant. Everything else, including responsibility for collecting the initial deposit, monthly rent and sourcing specialists for repairs, remains the job of the landlord. The middle range is often called ‘tenant find plus rent collection’ and as the name suggests, means that the letting agent collects the deposit and rent as well as finding a tenant. Full management is the option often chosen by absentee or less experienced landlords, where everything is managed by the letting agent. Whatever level of service you choose, it is wise to check with the agent exactly what is covered – if you are away and something goes wrong, you are less likely to be able to fix problems from a distance. Unless you opt for tenant-only arrangements, the agent should carry out regular inspections of the property and advise you whether there are any issues. You will have to ensure a maintenance float is in place to cover small repairs so that the agent can arrange to have them fixed without further involvement from you.
This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of things to check that your chosen letting agent will do, and indeed you may have your own priorities when it comes to choosing an agent. However, it is a useful starting point to ensure that you know how the agent will operate in your absence.