Property Letting – Letting your home

It is estimated that over 2.6 million homes in England are rented from over half a million landlords. If you are hoping to become one of these landlords through the letting of your house then you need to be aware of your legal rights and obligations of doing so.

When you let a property, in this case your home, you will automatically be setting up an assured ‘shorthold’ tenancy. This shorthold tenancy means the following:

• You have a guaranteed right to get your home back after six months if you need to
• You can charge a 'market rate' for rent, that is, the going rate for similar property in the area
• You can get your home back if your tenant owes you at least two months or eight weeks rent
• You can evict tenants who are causing a nuisance to local people
• You can end the tenancy at any time for certain reasons for possession set out in legislation. These include rent arrears, anti-social behaviour, and damage by the tenant. The length of the written notice you must give will depend on the reason that you are using

You are under no obligation to have to stick with this ‘shorthold’ tenancy as you are able to arrange the letting of your property so that it lasts for a set period, a ‘fixed’ term, which can be longer or shorter than the six months set out in the shorthold tenancy.

If for whatever reason a situation arises, which results in you having to end your tenancy then you can do so as long as you give your tenant two months written notice. If you do need the use of your property back and you sadly have to evict your tenant you are under no obligation to provide them with the reasons as to why you need your property back.

Many people often have the need to leave their property empty for whatever reason and many people wonder why they can’t just leave their property empty, well the truth is you can but what most people don’t realise is that by leaving their property empty they are losing £5000 a year through rent, council tax etc. This is why it is a good idea to rent your property out when you are not using it as not only will all of your bills be paid you will also be making a profit.

As well as the option of renting your entire property out you also have the option of letting rooms within your property. This is a useful way of getting extra income. In this form of letting tenants do not have the right to challenge the level of rent that they agree to pay and they can be given less notice if the room is needed at any time by the property owner.

If you are thinking of getting into the property market through the letting of a property then ensure that you have covered all of the legal aspects that come with it and make sure that any repairs that are needed to be carried out on the property are done in a safe and professional manner.

Helen is the web master for ARCH Property Management, specialists in Property Letting.