How Rent Protection with Legal Cover works
Rent Protection with Legal cover is a fantastic cover which provides Landlords with peace of mind, as even the best tenants can fall on hard times and whilst you may be sympathetic you probably can’t afford to lose your rental income. Providing the tenant is still living in the property, if they do not pay their rent whether through being made redundant or any other circumstances, the cover covers the rent arrears. Meanwhile, Rentshield will start legal action to evict the tenant, meaning the Landlord receives the rental income until the property becomes vacant. Even then, once the tenant has been evicted and the property is re-advertised the Landlord will receive 50% of the monthly rent for a maximum of three months or until we have re-let the property, whichever is soonest.
Extra Information
Energy Performance Certificate
Landlords must by law provide an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) to tenants when letting a property. The government is performing stringent checks on EPCs, and failure to comply with this legislation may lead to a fine of £5000. This certificate must be in place before the property is put up for advertising, and a copy is given to the tenant on move-in day. The EPC provides an energy efficiency rating for a property on a scale of ‘A’ to ‘G’, with ‘A’ being the most efficient and ‘G’ being the least. An EPC must be completed and issued by a qualified and accredited Domestic Energy Assessor. In the rented sector, an EPC is valid for 10 years and can be reused as many times as required during that period. There is currently no requirement for landlords to make any improvements if their property has a poor rating. We can arrange this for you. Please call the office for more details.
Gas Safety Installation and Use
This covers any gas appliances, pipes, and fittings within the property. A Landlord’s Gas Certificate MUST be provided before the tenants move in, and a copy must be given to the tenant by law. The gas safety certificate is then due annually from that date. A record of these certificates must be kept, and they must be carried out by a qualified gas-safe engineer. This is of the highest importance, and we reserve the right on this regulation to arrange for gas inspections to be arranged at the landlord’s expense should the appropriate certificate not be available to us. Landlords should note the maximum penalty for non-compliance with these regulations is a fine of at least £5000 or even 6 months imprisonment. We can arrange this for you. Please call the office for more details.
Smoke alarms and Carbon monoxide alarms
From October 2015, new legislation insists that all Landlords must install a working smoke alarm on every floor of the property and test them at the start of each tenancy. Carbon Monoxide Alarms must be installed in the room where any solid fuel appliance is installed. Landlords who fail to install smoke alarms & carbon monoxide alarms would face sanctions and up to a £5,000 civil penalty. Landlords should ensure that working chimneys are swept regularly; common practice is every 12 months.
Electrical Safety
It is a Landlord’s legal duty to ensure that all electrical appliances & fixed wiring in a property are safe. There are currently no legal requirements for landlords to have a formal annual safety check of electrical equipment. However, this is open to interpretation; as far as trading standards are concerned, a landlord must be able to demonstrate that electrical appliances are safe before the property is let. Should any piece of electrical equipment have a fault that results in injury or fatality, the person responsible for supplying the equipment (landlord) could be open to prosecution. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you have all the electrical appliances & circuits certified safe by a suitably qualified electrician and a certificate issued. We can organise this for you; please ask for a quote.
Consent to Let
If the landlord has a mortgage, it is normal for mortgagees to require notification of any proposed letting of the property. The Landlord should receive their consent prior to proceeding. The Landlord should also advise their insurance company (buildings & contents) of the proposal to let the property so as to be covered by the correct policy.
Tax
UK Resident landlords: If you are a resident landlord in the UK, your net taxable profit from your rental business represents income received without tax deduction at source. This will need to be added to your other taxable income to work out your overall tax liability for a particular tax year. The normal method of reporting your taxable income to the Inland Revenue and calculating your tax liability is via a self-assessment tax return.
Non-Resident UK landlords: The Non-Resident landlords (NRL) scheme is for taxing the UK rental income of persons whose usual place of abode is outside the UK. Unless the landlord can provide us with an exemption certificate from the Inland Revenue, we are obliged by law to deduct basic rate tax (currently 23%) from rents received and account to the Inland Revenue on a quarterly basis.
We can supply you with details on Landlord Building and Contents insurance which can include accidental and malicious damage caused by a Tenant.
