[tigerlily]

I know many people have had good luck getting their own tenants and having no problems with houses in their home country left as a rental instead of being sold. Our experience has been awful though. We found the tenants ourselves, checked them out, moved them in. Since then they have paid very little rent owed to us. We are in the process of getting them out of the house and it's really not easy being so far away. Lots of sleepless nights and huge financial stress covering that mortgage and our rental costs here as well.

I hope it will be sorted soon, but I just wanted to put this heads up in that it's not always smooth sailing being a landlord! Wishing now we had sold before leaving.

[buzztalks]

can empathise. I remember paying a visit to our tenants once, and noticing that they had chopped down a beautiful silver birch in our garden.....without our permission. very annoying. When they moved out, they left their gas cooker which was leaking. Had to pay to have that disconnected and taken away.

very,very annoying.

[napiers]

These sorts of things are the worry I have. OH is adamant that we shouldn't sell before we come and whilst I can see his point I worry that it could just be a huge headache!

[JandM]

I've been looking into using an agent to manage a rental for us in the UK, for after we've moved to NZ. Their total management package costs 12% of the rent - looks well worth it to me, not to have to deal directly with the tenants.

[napiers]

That's worth knowing, just as a rough guide, while we deliberate! We've still got a while but time will fly ...

[dusk]

you will also need to pay buildings insurance and pay for any repairs/other work that needs jding, also you need to have a gas safety check performed once a year - a lot of my landlords use the british gas insurance whatsit in case anything like boilers/heating systems need looking at too, as you just have a reference number and the tenat can use this to get appointments for people to come out dand look at the stuff.

[JandM]

Using that agent, they do essentials like Dusk mentions on your behalf, and, obviously, account to you for what's been spent. Clearly, anything like this COULD be open to abuse, so I'm going to be checking references etc., and/but this is a well-known longstanding local company, and I don't think they would've survived if they didn't trade fairly.

[Mickstim]

Ouch Tigerlily - that is such a worry for you. Hope you manage to get it all sorted out soon.

Bx