Landlord Checklist
Life can take unexpected turns during the course of your lifetime and you never know when your living arrangements can change. Renting out what has been your family home or your pride and joy, can be a confronting experience. We are here to help with guiding you through the legislation to ensure we are in line with legal requirements.
Here are a few tips that can assist in securing a tenant faster and enabling the process to run as smoothly as possible:
- Water compliancy – if your property is individually metered and is deemed water compliant, request a compliancy certificate from a plumber – water consumption can then be charged to the tenant
- Smoke alarms – laws are rapidly changing due to the importance of this issue – please ask us for the updated laws with regards to legislative requirements for smoke alarms within your property
- Cleaning – although you believe your property is clean, we advise that when you vacate the property, we employ a professional cleaner to carry out the ‘bond’ clean. It may seem an additional cost however, this can ultimately save you time/arguments with the tenant when they vacate
- Insurance – ensure all the correct insurances are in place, namely building and landlord insurance
- Yards, gardens and lawns – ensure the yards/trees/bushes etc have had a really good haircut/mow/whipper snip when you vacate the property. For marketing purposes, this is a cosmetic process that can assist with securing a tenant quickly.
- Carpet cleaning – it is recommended that you professionally clean all carpets within the property and provide a copy of the receipt to your agent
- Furnished vs unfurnished – Our recommendation would be that the property be unfurnished as providing furniture does not necessarily result in a higher rent plus you are obliged to fix or replace any furniture/appliances that breaks through no fault of the tenant. Air conditioning units, stove tops, ovens, dishwashers are considered standard items for inclusion. Furniture can always be offered to tenants to purchase.