Louise Savage, Sales & Marketing Director at Residential Land writes a monthly column for City AM offering readers advice on renting properties in the capital. Some of the most recent questions include:

Dear Louise, I am looking to rent out my flat in Putney as I can’t sell it for the price I want. Can you give me any tips on how to maximise the rental return? 

 

The easiest and cheapest way of adding immediate rental value to any home is by clearing the flat out and removing all of your personal effects. Leave your furniture, pictures and rugs but be prepared to remove them if a good prospective tenant requests it. Then clean it until it gleams and paint it. It’s so simple and very effective, but for some unknown reason, most landlords don’t do this, so it will automatically put your property ahead of most of your competition. 

Understand your potential market and tailor your property to attract that type of tenant. For example, a corporate tenant is likely to have higher expectations than a student. 

If you have time to rent the property out yourself you will save huge sums on estate agent fees. Advertise in Loot or on free websites such as Gumtree and put a sign up in your window. If you do it yourself, make sure viewings are safe and that you fulfill all of your legal requirements such as setting up a tenancy deposit scheme and organising an energy performance certificate.

Also, be realistic and flexible. Remember the longer your property is vacant, the less income you will have over the total term.  Your mortgage and bills still need to be paid so try to weigh up the costs against the advantages of holding out for more rent. You may need to offer rental terms of less than the standard year in order to achieve the best possible rental return.

Dear Louise, I have just moved out of a flat in Shoreditch and my landlord is withholding half my deposit on what I consider to be wear and tear. I have had a full inventory check-out and the flat was cleaned before I left. What are my rights on this?

Your deposit will be legally protected by the tenancy deposit scheme if you moved into the property after the 6th April 2007 and your rent is below £25,000 per year.  If this is the case, ask your landlord for details of the scheme that was used and contact them directly. They will be able to act as independent arbitrators between you and your landlord and will help you to agree on a sensible deposit refund.

If your tenancy is not protected by the tenancy deposit scheme you can contact your local Citizens Advice Bureau or a solicitor who will be able to advise you if you have a case for the small claims court.

Either way, you will need to provide information or evidence to substantiate your claim so put together a pack for the arbitrators or small claims court.  This should include your original signed check-in and check-out inventories, a letter from the inventory clerk detailing their findings, and any photographic evidence that you have of the condition of the property at check out.

Louise Savage is a director of Residential Land, London’s largest prime central London landlord.  www.residentialland.com 

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Residential Land are prime central London’s largest private landlord.  Properties to rent througout the capital with flats available in Bayswater, Marylebone, Pimlico, South Kensington and many more.

In early 2008 Residential Land were invited to join the British Property Federation (BPF).  The BPF aim to sustain and promote the interests of all those who own and invest in property in the UK.  As one of central London’s largest landlords and a key investor in the central London property market Residential Land’s membership allows us to comment on and understand in more detail key issues facing the property market as a whole as well as to support various campaigns and actions that the BPF are working on. 

Bruce Ritchie, founder and CEO of Residential Land, already a member of the Property Consultants Society has now also joined the Residential Committee of the BPF.  The committee is made up of key residential investors, developers and house builders and meet’s quarterly to discuss various topics that affect all of them.  One of the main aims of the committee is to improve the public’s perception of the professional residential landlord something which is very important to Residential Land who rent over 1,200 flats and houses in London and who take the customer service angle of their job as a landlord very seriously.

click here to search for flats to rent in London

As prime central London’s largest privately owned landlord, Residential Land decided that it was time to join forces with the most widely read central London property supplement, the Evening Standard’s Homes and Property. The outcome is a sponsored page on the Homes and Property website featuring information and top tips on renting in London, a featured central London rental property of the week and lots more key information on renting in the capital. There will be a monthly article on the site, written by one of Homes and Properties writers, David Spittles covering a rentals related topic. The page aim’s to give information and guidance to anyone who is looking to rent in central London directly from an established landlord, like Residential Land, who have 100s of flats to rent in London. For the launch of this site we are giving away a two night stay at Grand Plaza serviced apartments, our short stay property so please visit the site to enter. All entries should be received by the 31st January 2009.

Visit the Homes and Property site here: www.homesandproperty.co.uk/rent

Click here to Search for Residential Land’s property to rent in London

PLEASE NOTE - THIS POSITION IS NOW FILLED

We are looking for an Administrator to come on board and provide administrative support to one of our Building Managers.

You must be efficient in your work and have experience of using Microsoft Word & Excel. It is an all-round support role including general office duties so the successful candidate must be a good self-starter with extremely good initiative. You will also help out with letting out our apartments.

This is an exciting opportunity to join a rapidly expanding company with a growing portfolio of properties.

The person:

• High attention to detail
• Excellent organisational and time management skills
• Able to work well as part of a team
• Ability to multi-task and remain calm under pressure
• An excellent telephone manner and interpersonal skills to deal with a wide variety of people and clients
• A flexible and reliable approach to work
• Must be a team player, with the ability to work independently with minimal supervision

If you are interested in this role, please send your CV and a covering letter to Matthew Lord via email: matthew@residentialland.com.

PLEASE NOTE - THIS POSITION IS NOW FILLED

The Purpose of the Role

To take sole responsibility for the purchase ledger function in the group. To be the main contact for all suppliers.

Pre-Ledgering Function

File all Purchase Orders raised by individual departments once approved by FD.
Dealing with all the supplier invoices and credit notes that come in, these will need to be logged on the Purchase Invoice Register (PIR), at the logging stage these will also need to be allocated to the respective property / client, the PIR facilitates this.
Once logged these invoices will need to be matched to the PO’s, this should be the case for all invoices except utility bills / council tax.
For Invoices that do not have PO’s these will need to be forwarded to the respective department heads/building managers for authorisation.

Ledgering Function

Prepare batch of invoices that need to be ledgered and then ledger the invoices.
Ensure that all invoices are being coded to the correct expense account on the P&L. At this stage additional checks will need to be made to ensure that the invoice is filtering through correctly to the respective property/client. This is automatic if the entry is correct at the PIR stage
Once ledegered all invoices are to be filed in the outstanding invoices file

Payment Function

Run the Creditors Ledger - Days Outstanding Report once every fortnight, this will gives an indication of the invoices outstanding that need to be paid.
Prepare the payment batch by sorting invoices that need to be paid via Bacs or cheque, this will need to be sorted in two separate batches.
Batches to be authorised by the FD.
Run the Payment Process for invoices to be paid via BACS, send out copies of remittance advices either via E Mail or post and file copies in the payments file.
Run the Payment Process for invoices to be paid via Cheque, these will need to be signed by FD.
Take copies of the signed cheques and attach these to the respective paid invoices.
Post cheques out to the suppliers.

Post Payment Function

File all paid invoices in the paid invoices file.
For the purposes of the audit trail ensure that all invoices paid are filed in payment batch and document number order.
For the Internal Audit Purposes reconcile supplier outstanding statements to our creditors ledger.

Additional responsibilities

Processing of expenses for Staff in a timely fashion.
Set up relevant supplier accounts on Propman for new suppliers.
Work through bank statements to ensure any direct debits from the general accounts are being allocated to relevant expense accounts on propman.
Support other members of the Finance team as and when required.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Applicants are required to demonstrate that they possess the following attributes.

Skills/Abilities

• Excellent IT skills including Microsoft Office
• Ability to exercise initiative
• Ability to relate appropriately to others
• Presentation skills
• Problem solving to planning and implementation
• Clear, relevant, concise verbal skills

Knowledge

• Knowledge of a similar organisation
• Knowledge of the Property industry – desirable but not essential
• Understand of the needs of this type of business

Any other requirements

• Commercial, a true team member and the ability to get hands dirty within a small rapidly expanding organisation
• Ability and willingness to work under pressure and according to the needs of the post
• Act fairly and with honesty and integrity at all times

If you are interested in this role, please send your CV to Matthew Lord via email: matthew@residentialland.com.