Is being a landlord that great?

[Lockhouse]

does that mean if major work such as recarpeting / redecorating cannot be claimed for?

10% is only claimable if your property is a furnished let. If you claim the 10% then some other costs are not allowable, you need to take detailed advice depending on your circumstances and the type of property.

[northernladuk]

No wonder, with that nylon stuff you had down, everyone was walking around looking like Don King :-)

I thought my industrial standard carpet floor tiles looked the business. Took me 6 months to do the whole living room as clientco would have noticed the same tile go missing if I hadn't spread it over time

[Fishface]

My last tenants were a disaster - trashed the place and left a lot of debts related to the property.

If your tenants are not UK - get their passport numbers + visas verified.

Put water on a meter - so you can identify sub-letting.

Inventory companies - stupid, idle & arrogant about their 'profession' - check and double check their documents - take your own photos and videos for proof - they claim their descriptions are more accurate than photographic evidence !

Anyone a landlord in Glasgow?

[Basil Fawlty]

Were you using agents to simply help you out while you were responsible? They don't do a great deal in that scenario - or get paid much. One would hope they'd be less crap with a managed service because they only get paid when the rent comes in!

Not for us. It would be hugely profitable if we didn't have gaps between tenants, have to redecorate 'cos they ruined it, etc... mortgage interest is £61pcm on a£60k house and rent ~400pcm which is a great yield.

It's pretty easy to look for houses up for let, and houses on the same street up for sale, and see if letting would only make sense on a cash purchase, or would still be profitable on a mortgage basis.

I'd suggest like with contracting, assume the place is empty 3 months a year.

It was the full managed service. One particular incident happened when the current tenants moved out. The agents said they'd rented it straight and the new tenants were going to move in within two weeks of the old tenant moving out. The day before they were supposed to move in the agent called say new tenants had not passed the referencing so they couldn't let them move in, they told me not to worry though as they had someone else sorted, but they can't move in for another 6 weeks ! Once these tenants had moved in I found out they actually knew the agent, so it was clear they'd just fed me a load of old crock to keep the flat for their buddies.

Ultimately this cost me two months of rent and was the point were I stopped using agents. Given I've such a significant portion of my retirement invested in this, I now keep much closer control over things.