Landlords What Can We Do For You?

We market the services of independent Surveyors. Surveyors pride themselves on a high standard of work. We can offer Schedules of Condition with regard to leases , Property Reports, Schedules of Dilapidations, Section 18 Valuations, Scott Schedules, Commercial Building Surveys, Structural Reports, Specific Defects Reports. Note these are not for bank lending but are to advise you how much we feel the property is really worth. If you have a property problem we may even already have written an article on it and we would refer you to the many articles we have on our home page 1stAssociated.co.uk. use independent surveyors who are more than happy to chat. Please Free phone us on 0800 298 5424 and surveyor will call you back.

Landlords, what can we do for you?

As a landlord and owner of property that is leased to a third party we offer various services that can help protect your assets and ultimately lead to growth in both the value of the property and the income stream. There are various phases where we offer advice and we would comment that the surveyors offering advice are also landlords and tenants (or have been in the past).

Investment purchases

We can offer advice at the investment purchase stage, both on the structural condition of the property and future maintenance issues or liabilities. Examples of the sort of things that we found in the past would be asbestos roofs that need replacing, awkward and difficult valley gutters, discrepancies with boundaries, and service charges for shared access roads.

We have also found unusual drainage systems; in one case we found a holding tank underneath part of a property, which was used for holding flooding water and have also encountered structural problems, some of them are acceptable within the client's risk criteria and some not!

There are numerous other things; all of which we advise you in the action required and the associated costs and help you with the negotiation process if you so wish.

Renting out the property

We can offer advice with regard to adaptations and alterations that may be needed in renting out a property. We can also offer advice on extensions and alterations and obtain planning permission and project manage and cost manage the work. This type of work can range from anything from adding a mezzanine floor, carrying out alterations to meet the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) requirements to advice on insulating the property and looking at total running costs. We use thermal imaging equipment. We can even help with branding and signage design, obtaining planning permission and all the usual nuts and bolt type things that surveyors and designers do we feel do offer a reality check and cost control, which can be so essential with property, as costs tend to run away.

Thermal image of a roof with the red showing the heat loss

Managing your rented property

We can offer advice on your legal position with regard to the Landlord and Tenant Act. If you do get a difficult tenant we can prepare interim Schedules of Condition and negotiate and manage works required and can help put you in a better position in a difficult situation.

Property coming to the end of the lease

Where we have specialist knowledge is with the dilapidations process. We can advise you based on your lease and actions throughout the term of the lease, what would be a realistic claim and do a Schedule of Dilapidations and compare these to the appropriate surveyors Guide Lines and Property Act Protocol to make sure that, in a worst case scenario, if this does go to court then you will be in the best possible position.

However, the Protocol has very much been written to avoid dilapidations going to court (we are advised that it is now less than five per cent). Therefore negotiated agreements are the order of the day, usually utilising Scotts Schedules, very much aimed to put you in the position you want to be at the end of a dilapidations claim, whether it is the tenant carrying out the work to a good standard. Experienced landlords will be familiar with the minimum quality repairs that are often carried out at the end of the lease by the lessee or tenant. Equally, we don't look for unrealistic Rolls Royce standard repairs as legally this wouldn't hold up in the courts; we look for appropriate repairs for the property's market and the area in which it is located. We are also happy to negotiate a monthly settlement if the landlord so requires, often with our fees included in this.

An example of a claim

If you look around our website you will see examples of the work we do in the Compare Our Surveys' section.

We would finally just add the importance of Section 18. We have had experience in this and we are happy to negotiate or project manage any Section 18 claims which may be made against you as part of the Schedule of Dilapidations and of course we will keep you informed as things progress.

You may be interested in our other articles:

Dilapidations Negotiations (Landlord or Landlords Surveyor not Acting Fairly)

Lease Negotiations with your Landlord

Dilapidations Section 18 Valuation

Dilapidations for Landlords and Investors including an example of a Scotts Schedule

Landlord's View on a New Business Taking on a Lease

What the Landlord wants in a Tenant

Landlords What do they Look For in an Investment Property?

Landlords What do they Look for in Industrial Properties?

Landlords, can you have too good a retail tenant?

Landlords, can you have too good an industrial tenant?

If you need help and advice with regard to leases, dilapidations, schedules of condition, dilaps claims, scott schedules, building surveys, structural reports, engineers reports, specific defects report, structural surveys, home buyers reports or any other property matter please free phone 0800 298 5424 for a friendly chat. Please note we are independent surveyors.

If you would like Dilapidations Help then please visit our www.DilapsHelp.com website and for Disputes go to our Disputes Help site www.DisputesHelp.com .

We hope you found the article of use and if you have any experiences that you feel should be added to this article that would benefit others, or you feel that some of the information that we have put is wrong then please do not hesitate to contact us (we are only human).

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