What does it cost?
Every fee we charge is published here. Management is charged on rent collected, so an empty room costs us too.
Our management fee is 10% of the rent we actually collect, and we are currently not VAT registered, so that is the figure you pay. There are no set-up fees, no renewal fees and no exit fees. Every charge we make is on this page — if it is not here, we do not charge it.
Management and letting
What the management fee covers
Included: rent collection and arrears chasing, monthly statements, compliance tracking and renewal reminders, deposit registration and return, arranging repairs and access, inspections, the annual winter visit, and out-of-hours emergency cover.
Charged separately: finding tenants, certificates and safety checks, maintenance costs.
Property management
Single lets, professional and student HMOs. Charged monthly, per property, on rent collected.
Tenant find — per room
Per room, per tenancy, inclusive. No per-person referencing charge.
Tenant find — single let
Per tenancy. Up to two adult tenants, inclusive.
Additional adult tenant, single let
Per tenancy.
Replacement room tenant, found by the outgoing tenant
Enhanced referencing, per tenant
Per tenant, per tenancy.
All tenant find fees are inclusive. Standard referencing covers a previous landlord reference, photo identification, a Right to Rent check and proof of income. Single lets also include enhanced referencing as standard — a credit search and affordability assessment through a third-party provider. On HMO rooms this is available as an option at £35 per tenant.
If you have more than one property with us, the management fee comes down. How much depends on how many properties and what they need, so we agree it with you rather than publishing a scale — but it is always less than the rate above, and it applies from the second property onwards.
Setup costs to budget for
Two things we fit in every house we manage. They are the landlord's cost, and they pay for themselves in fewer call-outs.
Smart heating (Inspire)
To install. Runs on a schedule, tenants can boost for two hours, and it switches itself on if the house gets too cold.
Keypad smart locks (Yale)
Code entry instead of keys, so no lockouts and no lock changes between tenants.
Bills package
For bills-inclusive houses we advertise the rooms with bills included and pay gas, electricity, water, broadband and the TV licence ourselves. We monitor usage through the smart meters, apply the fair usage clause if a house goes over, and carry the cost if it does. Your rent is agreed per room excluding bills, and our management fee is charged on that figure only — never on the bills element.
Notice and ending our agreement
One month's written notice, either side. No exit fee. If you leave us, we don't continue charging commission on tenants we introduced — once the management ends, it ends.
Licensing
Licensing position report
Per property.
HMO licence application
Per property.
HMO licence renewal
Per property.
Selective licence application
Per property.
Licence variation
Per property.
Council inspection attendance
Per property, per visit.
Licence expiry tracking and renewal reminders
Council fees are separate and payable by you. Applications include room measurements, floor plans, supporting documents and liaison with the council through to determination.
Planning
Planning assessment before you buy
Credited against a later application, no time limit.
Certificate of lawfulness application
HMO change-of-use planning application
Council application fees are paid separately. The assessment fee comes off the cost of any application we then make for you.
Compliance and safety
Fire alarm and emergency lighting certificate
Per property.
Gas certificate and/or boiler service
Per property.
EPC
Per property.
EICR
Per property.
Legionella risk assessment
Per property.
Fire door checks
Annual compliance health check, optional
Per property.
Six-monthly inspections for HMOs
Annual inspections for single lets
Annual winter visit
Tracking these dates, booking the renewals and holding the certificates is included in management. The certificates themselves are charged at the rates above.
The fire alarm and emergency lighting check is carried out together by a qualified electrician.
Fire doors are checked at every inspection — self-closers, seals, gaps and hinges — and recorded with photographs in your report. Repairs are quoted separately as they arise.
You can opt out of any certificate and arrange your own.
Repairs
We take the call, arrange access, instruct the contractor and see the job through. The contractor's invoice is passed to you at cost.
We instruct repairs up to £200 without checking first, so a dripping tap doesn't wait on an email. Anything above that is agreed with you before we instruct, unless it is an emergency affecting safety or security, in which case we act first and tell you immediately.
Tenancy administration
Full photographic inventory
Per tenancy.
Check-out report
Deposit registration
Deposit return, undisputed
Deposit dispute submission
Per tenancy.
Rent increase notice
Renters' Rights Act information sheet, per tenant
Ground 4A pre-tenancy notice, student HMOs
Possession notices, eviction and court proceedings
Per tenancy.
Possession and court work is quoted in writing before any work begins.
Deposits
Professional HMO room
Student house, per tenant
Single let
Every deposit is protected with the Tenancy Deposit Scheme custodial scheme within 30 days. We use the custodial scheme, which means the deposit is held by the scheme rather than by us. Your tenant's money never sits in our account.
Fees payable by tenants
Under the Tenant Fees Act 2019 only the following payments may be charged to a tenant. Everything else is prohibited.
Holding deposit
Per tenancy.
Tenancy deposit
Per tenancy.
Late rent
Per tenancy.
Lost key or security device
Per tenancy.
Change of tenant, at the tenant's request
Per tenancy.
Early termination, at the tenant's request
What we don't charge for
- No set-up fee
- No VAT
- No per-person referencing or Right to Rent charges
- No fee on void rooms — we charge on rent collected
- No renewal or re-signing fee
- No charge for rent increase notices
- No exit fee
- No ongoing commission after management ends
- No charge for arranging repairs
- No charge for out-of-hours emergency attendance
Refinancing and insurance
A surveyor is in your property for twenty minutes, and what they see in those twenty minutes decides what it's worth. We prepare the pack they need — schedule of works and costs, room measurements, floor plan, tenancy and rent detail, licence and compliance certificates — pull local comparable evidence, and meet them at the property.
On an HMO the income matters more than the bricks, and room-level comparables take considerably longer to assemble than sales comparables on a terrace. That is the difference between the two fees.
Valuation preparation — single let
Per property.
Valuation preparation — HMO
Per property.
Broker and insurance introductions
Valuation preparation includes meeting the surveyor at the property. We may receive a commission from brokers we introduce you to. We will tell you before making the introduction and disclose the amount once known. Our fees are the same whether or not you use them.
Rent to rent and guaranteed rent
Some landlords would rather have a fixed sum every month and no involvement at all, including no void periods. On the right property we will take a house on a rent to rent basis: we pay you an agreed amount each month whether or not the house is full, we run it, and we take the difference and the risk.
It only works on some properties. The numbers have to leave room for both of us, which usually means a house that suits room-by-room letting and needs little work to get there. More often than not, when we run the figures, straightforward management leaves the landlord better off, and we will tell you when that is the case rather than talk you into an arrangement that suits us.
If you want to know whether your property is one that works, ask us and we will run the numbers as part of a property review. It is free either way.