Wow I think that is high, following on from your OP I thought 10% would be the norm. then I thought I ought to find out so rang a letting agent in Suffolk (My area of choice!) and she said for a full service (Whatever that means!) they charge 7%

She said that covered everything,I've asked them to send me a copy of their T&C's and any other information they want to send me.

Have you had any quotes for 'Landlord Insurance' yet I would be interested to know as I'm reluctant to ring them since don't yet have the house ready to rent

Yeah the lady from the same place said it was a lot less last week but mustn't have had a clue!?!

Wow, 7% sounds a lot more like what we'd be prepared to pay, and Suffolk I thought would be expensive, so that's good to hear, the agent that came round, although very good, are more residential rather than lettings (and have very few lets compared to others round here) so I'm confident we'll get it cheaper.

The lower level they offered but not what we want - only advertising, getting tenants in and drawing up an inventory, nothing to do with the money side of things or maintenance they only charge a flat fee of 1 months rent.

I asked the agent how much roughly landlords insurance is - our regular house/contents insurance is £200 p.a (3 bed semi), he said landlords would be about an extra £100 p.a which isn't bad, but haven't gotten a proper quote yet.

I was a bit gobsmacked you have to pay tax on your earnings from rental - but you can offset all your expenses so the sum hopefully wouldn't end up being much. I'm self employed and have an accountant who saves me thousands every year so i'm hoping she can do the same with the house tax! Worth it..

Thanks, that's answered my question (and the PM) and I agree, bearing in mind what some tennants might do around £300 would be OK

Yes, the tax situation is a bummer, but hang onto your accountant she'll know all the things to do and will be even more help to you.

Thanks again.

I had a flat i used to rent out, i had an management agency that were supposed to check the property every month.....waste of time, do everything yourself is the advice i'd give.

I had a single mother in my flat DSS and her boyfriend who wa known to the police was not supposed to set foot in the flat, i later found out they were living together and then when they moved out they wrecked the place and took my keys and let themselves back in and took all my furniture. The police did nothing.

Then i rented it out to a so called friend who left it in such a state it took me a week to clean it

It is a nightmare so theres no way i'd do it again. I sold the flat in the end.

Urgh nightmare you poor thing, that sounds horrendous - actually our worst nightmare! Surely the management agency should have chased the 'wreckage', that's what a deposit is partly for, and they should have chased up the legal side of things That's what I thought paying the legal fees to the agent were for? Eek!

Paul's brother rented to friends, like what happened to you, they wrecked it too, isn't that awful?!

I think I'm going to need to get recommendations for an agent...

We can't do it all ourselves unfortunately , which is a worry, as we're going to be over 200 miles away. We do have very good neighbours who we'll keep in touch with and visit and vise versa

We've said no DSS We're a bit out of the sticks so not such a high proportion of such tenants looking around here apparently so no loss.

Just get recommendations if you can for a management agency, if you can find a good one then its worth it, yep a bit difficult if you are 200 miles away lol !

I kept the deposit from the ones that wrecked the flat, the police wouldn't do anything as apparently technically he didn't break in because he had the keys even though he had a criminal report as long as your arm

The friend i let rent the flat at a really cheap rate as she was having problems at home and that what you get in return i used to have to chase her every month for the rent money and she'd tell me to come and get it (bloody cheek) you live and learn as they say.

What riles me if that the people renting the flat have got more rights than the person who's property it is !

We've rented ours out for years and touch wood to date have had very few problems. We initially used the Estate Agent to find tenants, they do the checkings and necessary, although having said that we didn't this last time, did it all online, it worked out much cheaper but it took a bit of time and patience. We've had the garden trashed by a rotty but that's about the extent of any real damage. In this present climate there are a lot of people wanting to rent good properties. We have a service agreement with Br. Gas and stuff like that so it takes away most of the stress especially as we are so far away.

Thank you, that's good to hear, especially as you're so far away. Still wondering if we should allow dogs, HOW hypocritical of me heehee! But you just don't know how responsible people are with their dogs - is that awful? A few of my neighbours have dogs and I would hate to think a monster owner is going to move into the close to disrupt the peace! xx

One thing that has cropped up is that we 'have to' (i use that loosely, i know people who don't, even the agent knows people on their books who don't but in terms of insurance cover...and profession) inform our mortgage provider, who can put any stipulations on the mortgage - either force you to change to a buy to let or charge fees.

I have enquired with our mortgage company today as to what charges we might incur if we decide to let our house out and found out they charge a £50 fee then after 6 months they stick a 1 and a 1/2% interest percentage rise on your mortgage rate so the repayments increase! hmph!