Common questions when renting in London

What's the most common questions you get asked by prospective tenants when viewing a property? Hi, my name is Danny Valencia with My City Nest powered by Keller Williams. And today I want to share with you some of the most common questions that we get asked when prospective tenants go out to view properties. So there are a ton of questions that tenant asks when actually going out to view a property, but I'm going to narrow it down to around about six or seven questions.

So, the first one is are bills included? So most of the time around about 80 to 90% there will be no bills included in any of the tenancies. Sometimes, there may be some water rates including in the actual rental and perhaps some sometimes heating. But that really depends, so make sure you ask your agent the same.

The other question is who manages the property? Whose my first point of contact if I decide to rent the property. And this is a fair question because sometimes the agent can be instructed to actually let the property, so to actually find the actual tenant, but they won't be responsible for the whole process of managing the property will actually be your landlord. So that's a good question to ask. Who's actually going to be managing my property? Who's my first point of contact?

The other most common question is can we put any nails on the wall? Can we stick anything on the walls? Obviously people want to make the place their home and actually want to put pictures and things like that. So, that depends on entirely from landlords to landlord, the most cases you can do so as long as you return the property in the very same condition. So expect to paint the walls if you do damage them, there will be an inventory with that.

And that's another question, actually that should be asking who does the inventory? Who will be carrying this out? and By what date will I get the inventory when I actually signed the contracts?

One of the most popular questions is the boiler, when it was installed? When was the last maintenance? and Where is it actually located in the property? So, people do want to find out about the boiler and how efficient it is, which is a fair question because of course as a tenant you're very most likely going to be paying the bills. So, make sure you find that out because that's a very important one as well.

The other question is deposit monies. So the law has changed last year. Usually, the maximum that's an agent or landlord could charge would be up to six weeks. Now this is only five weeks, so that's the maximum that you should expect to pay and yet that can change. There are some land or some agents that may charge less.

The final question that I'm going to share with you is of course the length of the tenancy. So in most cases landlords wants a 12 month as a minimum. Rental lettings in London at least it's season on. They want to make sure that the property, if it's going to be empty, it's empty at the right side of the actual letting season. And that goes for any break clauses as well. You should be asking, or at least the most common questions is, is there any break clauses? And in most cases, there aren't any, and that's simply because again, they don't want to find the property empty at the wrong time of the year. And I appreciate that most people want peace of mind. Things may change, and yet with landlords that most of the time they want the peace of mind that the property is actually going to be occupied at the right time of the year.

That's the questions I'm going to share with you and if you have any questions for me or my team, please feel free to reach out to us with any questions regards to renting a property or perhaps letting a property if you are a landlord. Thank you, Danny Valencia here in my city and as powered by Keller Williams.