On Monday, 5 September 2016 17:12:10 UTC+1, Bill wrote:

A relation is thinking of renting out his house for a year or so while
he works away. He has had a very tentative contact with a local estate
agent who has quoted the possible rent and offered to manage the whole
arrangement. The agent hasn't seen the property.

Letting agents are never good.

My immediate thoughts were about the state of the property. It was
originally bought with a plan to refurbish it to a high standard, but he
hasn't had time to start. It has been fine as-is as a home, but, for
example, many of the interior doors don't close and are visibly out of
true. 2 surveys 10 years apart said that this was due to historical
settlement which has now stabilised and is no longer a problem. There
are other problems with things like garage doors that scrape on the
path, soakaways that need investigation and so on.

bed & bath doors must close, others less important. Failure to drain is a health issue, so that needs looking at. The question is whether that can be done before or after move-in.

It is his main home and he needs to be able to return to it after the
current job.

need to read up on the law on that then, plus what the agent's contract says about it

We can get the garden tidied for him and do small jobs so it looks OK,
and I might be asked to get involved in meeting one or more estate
agents on site.
Is it likely that he would have to get all the doors right before it was
rentable?
What do these inclusive estate agent deals involve? If a tenant is
installed and a light bulb needs replacing, is the agent likely to call
in a contractor at great expense?

If it's a halogen security light out of reach, the tenant can't be expected to know which bulb to use, how to install it, have a ladder or climb it, so yes it would be farmed out at daft expense. This is an area where landlords typically get burnt.


Any comments from anyone who has experience of this would be very
welcome.

It's like anything in life, if you engage in business without knowing what you're doing you'll get taken advantage of.


NT