We were recently approached by an investor who was purchasing three properties and wanted our involvement in the management of them.
One of the properties was being managed by one of a growing number of discount agencies. However, the minute they discovered that they were not successful in their bid for the on-going management, they stopped acting for either the existing owner, or the purchaser. This, despite the fact that an agent’s fees is deducted in advance from rent and the agent had been paid to manage the property up to completion of the sale.
The agency did, however, arrange a brand new tenancy agreement at the tenants’ request.
A variety of information and documentation was required immediately prior to exchange and completion and it proved very difficult to get hold of anyone at the agency. Eventually, at the 11th hour, a text message was received stating that the individual responsible was “on holiday”!
The purchase eventually went ahead and Belvoir decided to reference and credit-check the tenants in order to draw up another new agreement. This decision was made owing to the fact that the new agreement written by the original agent and arranged shortly before exchange, was defective in a number of important areas. It had been downloaded from the internet, ran to 3 ½ ambiguous pages and had been incorrectly completed. A Belvoir Basingstoke agreement, by comparison, is regularly updated, runs to 10 pages and is always double-checked by trained staff for errors.
It then came to light that the tenants were unable to pass the necessary referencing and credit-checks. They may have passed cursory referencing and credit-checks a couple of months earlier, but it seems unlikely and they certainly would have failed rigorous Belvoir checks. We were, therefore, unable to arrange for a new Belvoir agreement.
All too often, we are approached by a potential investor, or an existing landlord and his only real concern is what we charge as a monthly fee. On a daily basis, we are unfavourably compared to smaller agents with little resource or experience. We’re told that many will charge 6% for their services. At any price, these agents are over-charging. Whatever the supposed saving might be will easily be eroded over time by their lack of care, knowledge, experience and by a landlord’s exposure to entirely unnecessary risk.
We have a staff of 14, staff holidays don’t bring us to a standstill and we conduct thorough checks on all applicants prior to drawing up unambiguous agreements which have been tested in the courts.
This tale graphically illustrates just three areas of our demonstrably higher standards. There are obviously many other facets of our service which set us apart.
Feel free to contact us to discover just how much value we can add to managing your investment.
