With a good relationship comes trust, respect, and understanding. Not just in personal affairs, the same benefits can also be felt in more transactional settings, like with landlords and tenants.
When your tenants respect you, and vice-versa, you’re much more likely to retain the tenancy for longer, which results in a more stable income for years at a time.
Here, we’ll detail our seven top tips to fostering a great tenant-landlord relationship.
Putting a face to the name is always a nice experience. Being able to see who you’ve been conversing with for weeks and months does a lot to instil a sense of trust and stability into a relationship.
When you’re letting out a property, do your best to arrange a meeting with your tenants to introduce yourself properly. Even if you do utilise a property management service, tenants will always appreciate being able to speak directly to the owner of the building.
Communication is absolutely vital in letting arrangements. It goes both ways, too. On one hand, your tenants should communicate clearly with you to alert you to problems in the home, and you as a landlord should be just as clear when stating your intentions to visit the property or conduct maintenance.
Your tenants have a right to peaceful enjoyment. This means they’re entitled to enjoy their tenancy without being frequently disturbed. As a landlord, you should respect this right by giving them freedom to enjoy their stay in your home, without bearing down on them too much.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t conduct regular check-ins with your tenants, but it does mean that your check-ins should be spaced logically. Try to give plenty of notice around your visits and scheduled maintenance checks. Legally, you need to provide at least 24 hours of notice with a time that’s reasonable i.e. between 8am and 6pm.
Remember, the more notice you can give, the more time your tenants have to prepare for the visit.
When meeting your tenants before their tenancy begins, we advise that you establish some ground rules to ensure everyone is kept up to date and knows what’s expected of them.
Now, “ground rules” might be putting it a little bit too heavily. But expectation management is a great respect-building tactic in any relationship, especially one between a tenant and a landlord.
Expectations could revolve around the upkeep of the home, the date that rent is expected, and timeframes for reporting and fixing issues. If everyone knows what’s expected of them, things tend to go a lot smoother.
Speaking of fixing issues, while it’s your tenant’s responsibility to report problems during their stay, it is then your responsibility to fix get those problems resolved swiftly.
When you’re made aware of a problem, it is in both your and your tenant’s best interests to have it seen to quickly. Partially because by stopping a problem in its tracks, you prevent it from getting worse and causing damage throughout the rest of your property, but also because it improves your tenant’s living circumstances.
Some problems will of course need more time to be fixed. But, if you practice steps two and four of this list, your tenants will likely understand and cooperate.
While it does benefit to have an almost friend-like relationship with your tenants, it is important to always retain an element of professionalism. This is a transactional relationship, after all.
This means minimising the number of heated discussions you have with your tenants, undergoing a brief screening process before letting out your property, and ensuring contracts/references are up to date prior to any agreements being signed.
In life, nothing is guaranteed. While you may have plans to visit a property or conduct a repair on a certain day, sometimes you must respect that your tenants have other obligations that don’t always line up with your priorities.
While situations like this can be frustrating, an element of flexibility goes a long way in reassuring your tenants that their priorities line up with yours. This also extends to tenancy renewals – if there are changes that your tenants would like to make, hear them out. Happy tenants mean longer retention, after all.
As a bonus tip, if you’re looking at refinancing your buy to let properties, take a look at the options from Aldermore. We’re committed to supporting landlords and helping them make the most of their property.
Subject to status. If you fail to keep up with payments on your mortgage a ‘receiver of rent’ may be appointed and/or your rental property may be repossessed.