What are my responsibilities as a landlord & how to be a good landlord?

There are legal obligations as a landlord. My understanding of the current legislation is:

a)    Annual Gas Safety Certificate

b)    Duty of Care to a tenant as a landlord – various legislation.

c)    Energy Performance Certificate from 1/10/08.

It is also advisable (but not mandatory at present) to have:

d)    Electrical Certificate (NICEIC)

My experience as a landlord and as a property investment consultant is with terraced houses in the NW of England. I have a phrase that I use for the condition of houses called ‘fit for purpose’. ‘Fit for Purpose’ means that the house is in a good lettable condition. It doesn’t have to be a palace but it needs to be warm, dry and presentable (i.e. no rising damp, no penetrating damp, double glazed, gas central heating and a reasonable kitchen/bathroom and décor). If a house is in a good condition you can pick the tenant you want and the tenant is more likely to look after it if they know that they are getting a house that is properly prepared and looked after. I use the ‘Fit for Purpose’ standard for myself and clients. If a client doesn’t want to get the house to a ‘Fit for Purpose’ condition then I am not prepared to deal with him/her.

There is a lot of terraced stock in the NW, some of it is in good condition but some of it is appalling and some of the sights that I have seen in other landlord’s houses (which I have been viewing to potentially buy and then improve) have made my stomach turn and are criminally negligent. There is a term that is used for bad landlords and that is ‘slumlords’. I believe that this is true for a number of landlords who don’t care about the condition their tenants live in and their only focus is to get the rent in and forget about everything else. I believe that this is a strategy which is immoral but also regressive. If a tenant is living in a house in poor condition then they are not going to look after it, they will have little/no care and will be looking to move. If the house becomes vacant then the only type of tenant the landlord would hope to get is one that nobody else wants – i.e. a problem tenant and all of the problems associated with that – no rent, evictions etc….

Recently a number of the local councils that I deal with have introduced Landlord Accreditation Schemes. This basically means that the houses are inspected and have to meet a minimum standard before the council will allow any of their tenants to live in those houses. These schemes are a really good idea and are long overdue. Landlords and Letting Agents who become part of this scheme get preferential treatment from councils and also have access to home improvement grants. I recommend any landlord becoming part of a landlord accreditation scheme. It does take a while to sort out but if you have a good letting agent, they should be able to help you with it.

It is also worth investigating other free ways to improve your investment properties. There are home energy improvement grants available through various providers throughout the country. The Government makes the energy industry pay £1.5 Billion per year for energy improvement grants in homes. At present these include gas central heating and loft & wall insulation. There are some criteria that landlords need to meet but this is well worth looking into. The installation companies survey the houses and fit the energy improvement measures for free (in my experience).

With this is mind you do need to know about Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs). EPCs are being introduced on the 1st October 2008 for all new tenancies. These will be mandatory and will grade how energy efficient a house is. At present there is no requirement to act on the recommendations in the reports; however I think that in the future there will be tax advantages/disadvantages about an energy rating on a house. The government may even make it compulsory to hit a minimum standard. The EPC reports will be valid for 10 years.

My final thought on responsibilities as a landlord is to your tenants. I think that we need to act promptly and responsibly to issues and sensible requests from tenants. I am not advocating giving tenants everything they ask for but if there is a boiler repair or a broken window that these issues are dealt with as a matter of urgency and not allowed to drag on for days/weeks. These maintenance issues can be low priority to the landlord but will be a major problem for the tenant. I think it is good to keep a good relationship with tenants, to be firm but fair and responsive.