Being a landlord you’ll know that it can be an extremely exhausting job and even you have to take a break from looking after tenants from time to time. With Summer appearing just around the corner, you’re more than likely thinking about a vacation for a bit of time to yourself and potentially loved ones.
What might be playing at the back of your mind though is making sure that the properties you have are looked after whilst you’re away. The last thing you’d want is it lingering on your mind when you’re meant to be enjoying yourself in the sun. So, here’s a checklist that you should look to follow to keep your mind at ease so you can enjoy the better things in life.
Ensure Landlord Insurance Is In Place
It’s likely that you’ll already have this in place as you would have had the properties for a while, but you can never be too sure. Having landlord insurance in place means you can be assured that if something was to go wrong you’ll be covered in your absence. Check the difference landlord insurance types that are available on the market so that it can help cover the majority of scenarios that could possibly occur when you’re gone.
Inform Your Tenants
The biggest and most important step to take is informing your tenants that you’ll be away and for what specific dates. If they try to contact you and you’re not available without them knowing, it could be a potential disaster situation. They won’t be aware of alternative emergency contact and something that has occurred could need immediate attention. How you tell them is completely up to you, just make sure they know. The last thing you’ll need is to contact a dispute resolution lawyer about something occurring whilst you were away that both parties don’t agree with. It could get messy.
Arrange An Emergency Contact
When a tenant applies to rent at your accommodation, they normally provide you with a guarantor who can cover costs if you’re unable to. The same should apply to when you’re unavailable to be contacted regarding issues. You can either choose to arrange the contact before you’re about to go off on vacation or have them in place from the beginning so your tenants know who they are. Ensure the emergency contact has the following information:
– Name and contact information of the tenants
– Preferred contractors for particular issues
– Any bank details or cash for jobs
– Your contact information
– Property information such as spare keys, alarm codes etc.
– The rights that the emergency contact will have as a landlord
Have Access To Emails Just In Case
Although you’d want to be spending your time enjoying drinks at the poolside, it can be handy to keep access to your emails just so that no surprises spring up whilst you’re away. The out-of-office notification may be set on your emails but it won’t stop anyone from bombarding you with emails, especially with an emergency. An email will be considered the best way to contact you whilst you’re away so you’ll most likely have most of the information being fed to you this way.
If you cover the points made on this checklist, it should cover you enough to put your head to rest when you’re gone. It can be a struggle at times keeping on top of things but you shouldn’t feel as though you’re unable to get away from it for a few days by preventing yourself from going on a vacation. Just ensure that regular communication is had before and during your stay and you shouldn’t have any worries.
