Westone Housing
01733 320500
Building Confidence In Property Maintenance
01733 320500
Building Confidence In Property Maintenance
Purchasing Buy to Let Property, Checklist
What to look for when buying a property.
A common scenario:
You fall in love with a property after a viewing lasting 5 to 25 minutes you. You make an offer which is accepted and you are on your way to purchasing your dream home.
How many of us view the property again before completion.? Why not?
Because we expect people to care about our new property as much as we do. In our ideal world any maintenance issues arising whilst the property is under offer will be sorted out. And when you get the keys and move in the property is cleaned and ready for you.
Unfortunately this ideal world bears little resemblance to the real world!
You should visit the property at regular intervals, before sale is completed. In my experience good vendors will not be concerned or annoyed by these visits.
On your visits use this checklist to check for the following common problems:
- Stains to ceiling below wet areas
- Stains to ceilings below water tanks and hot water cylinders
- Cleanliness of property, and is it being kept clean.
- Rugs on carpets take look underneath they sometimes hide a multitude of sin
- Confirm with vendor what is included in the sale price
- Do the vendors have pets, this can have pest implications and I would recommend you ask for the carpets to be wet cleaned and pest treated
- The other issue is moving in and finding the property a mess. Investment Landlords I know have faced all these problems;
- The owner left his old fridge or freezer in the kitchen. You don’t want it and you then have to arrange to get rid of it. Not a problem (you think) as the local council will collect large items. But unfortunately the previous owner has had his full entitlement for that year and you have to pay privately to have it removed.
- You find that the carpets are soiled and overall the property is not in a condition where you can just move in and so you try to clean the carpets whilst moving in!
- The roof space is full of rubbish – very rarely will you find an antique worth a million
- The garage has the remains of an engine and a spare tyre in it
- The garden is full of the vendors dogs “toiletries”
- The wheelie bins (if relevant) are full to the brim with the wrong waste which the local authorities fine you for, anything from £60.00
- There has been a leak from the bathroom and the ceiling is bowed or the artex is starting to lift
What can you do?
Unfortunately if the monies have already been exchanged then nothing.
How do you avoid this?
If you do not have time you could always hire a property maintenance company to make ispections on your behalf.
I recommend that either yourself or the letting agent who will be marketing your property request to visit the property the day before exchange or completion.
If this request is refused then this should sound alarm bells and therefore I would suggest that you ask your solicitors to withhold at least £500 to cover cleaning, clearance and possibly any faults.
This £500.00 may not cover all the costs but will help a long way towards cleaning. If there are any other major issues then a solicitor will act to recover costs if the property is faulty.
