Creative Green Energy Services for Landlords
Whether it is one tenancy, or one thousand tenancies, all landlords have the same burden of responsibility.
What are the responsibilities of the landlord?
✔️keep your rented properties safe and free from health hazards
✔️make sure all gas and electrical equipment is safely installed and maintained
✔️provide an Energy Performance Certificate for the property
✔️protect your tenant’s deposit in a government-approved scheme
✔️check your tenant has the right to rent your property if it’s in England
✔️give your tenant a copy of the How to rent checklist when they start renting from you (you can email it to them)
✔️Fire safety
Other landlord’s duties include:
?fit and test smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms
?make sure that property in the area of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) are safe for the people who live there. This involves inspecting your property for possible hazards.
?take action on enforcement notices from your council. You also have the right to appeal enforcement notices.
?ensure disrepair issues are not adversely affecting the tenant, Homes Fit for Human Habitation
?Repairs:
the property’s structure and exterior
basins, sinks, baths and other sanitary fittings including pipes and drains
heating and hot water
gas appliances, pipes, flues and ventilation
electrical wiring
any damage they cause by attempting repairs
common areas, for example staircases in blocks of flats
Financial responsibilities
✔️Landlords have to pay Income Tax on your rental income, minus your day-to-day running expenses
✔️you must get permission from your mortgage lender, if you have a mortgage on the property you want to rent out.
Landlords must be aware of the different forms of tenancies, for example: Regulated tenancies. There are special rules for changing rents and terms for regulated tenancies (usually private tenancies starting before 15 January 1989).
Letting agents and landlords
Agreements between the two are on the basis of ‘ostensible authority’. This means that the landlord is liable, personally, for everything done by his agent on his behalf, so long as this is something a letting agent is normally empowered to do, even if the agent is acting outside the terms of his agency agreement. The exception: where the agent has failed to protect the deposit – the law was specifically changed in this respect in the Housing Act 2004 to allow tenants to sue the agent as well as the landlord for the penalty for non compliance.
Have procedures that you employ to manage all your duties or track that they are being done for you, managing your compliance as a landlord will ensure that the role remains a passion without ever becoming an onerous chore.
