Mess to Success

A special newsletter this month showing the less lucrative side of BTL investing and how we managed to turn a bad situation into a positive one.

The property is actually owned by Managing Director, Mark Shanta. It is a 2 bedroom top floor tenement property in Ibrox and had been tenanted for over 2 and half years by the same tenant. He had always paid his £525pcm rent always ontime, kept the property in excellent condition as per the quarterly inspections and always kept good lines of communication with us.

Then suddenly one month, rent payment stopped and we weren’t able to get in touch with the tenant via phone or email. Concerned we contacted the tenants next of kin who informed us that the tenant was planning to leave the property and we served the Notice To Quit and Section 33 documents. Fortunately we were able to get an email reply confirming he had vacated the property so we had permission to access and reclaim the property.

What we found is documented in the video below and doesn’t make for pleasant viewing.

From here we were able to reclaim the full deposit for damages and put an action plan into giving the property a light refurbishment. The results are below……..

Light Refurbishment
Within 2 weeks we had the property ready for listing by doing a light refurbishment. The work was done by our trusted trades contractor MPP ([email protected]).
– Replace carpets with laminate
– Replace Kitchen worktops and oven
– Paint
– Re-grout and silicon the bathroom
– FurnishWe then listed the property at £625pcm and within 3 days we had 10 enquiries, 4 viewings and 3 applications and we were able to choose our preferred tenant to enter the property.
What We Learned
Occasionally tenants regardless of how good a relationship you have with them meet life circumstances which lead them to fall on hard times. The situation above was far from ideal but it was by no means a disaster. We were able to use our experience to move quickly to resolve it, not spending a huge amount of money in the process and bringing the property up to an excellent standard which proved to be desirable.

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We put all of our latest news and property listings on Facebook as soon as they are live and have close to 900 followers now with 17 reviews from tenants and landlords. We appreciate the support and interaction. Hope everyone enjoyed the blog and if any reader would like to get in contact with Shanta Letting they can do so by email [email protected]