selecting tenants

How to Choose Student Tenants

If you have followed the advice in the section on advertising your property, you should hopefully be inundated with enquiries from prospective student tenants. You need to be well-organised to ensure you get the best from this process;

- Ensure you have an Energy Performance Certificate and a Gas Safety Certificate in place

- Ensure you have an Energy Performance Certificate and a Gas Safety Certificate in place

- Ensure your property has been maintained well

- Be available for viewings

- Ensure your current tenants have 24 hours’ notice of any viewings and encourage them to tidy up a bit

- Take down contact information and confirm any appointments by email

- Have a standard application form and email this out, together with a draft tenancy, so that they have all the information in advance

- Confirm the appointment again by phone a few hours before the viewing (it is incredibly frustrating to be left waiting at a property for a group who have neglected to tell you they took another property yesterday)

- Get to the property half an hour earlier to quickly tidy up, open curtains, turn on lights etc.

- Ensure you have the answers to all the common questions such as how much the rent is monthly, how long is the tenancy, how much will bills be, etc.

- If you have time, it can be worthwhile following up afterwards with a phone call or email to ask for feedback, questions, etc.

- Ensure you follow the new guidelines provided by the Government regarding tackling illegal immigration in privately rented accommodation.

- Check you have read and understand the government legislation on to avoid being liable for a civil penalty. See our advice section ‘Legalities’ for further information.

Once you have a group willing to take the property, you should collect their application forms, guarantor details, take a holding deposit (non-refundable if they change their mind) and take the property off the market. For student lets, it is standard practice to ask for a guarantor (usually a parent) who will cover the rent if it is not paid or if damage is done to the property. You should also ask for a reference from the university if they have been in halls, or from their previous landlord.

Once you have done all of your checks you need to arrange for the balance of the deposit to be paid, the tenancy signed and the first month’s rent to be collected. It is not compulsory to collect a deposit but it is advisable as it can be used to cover rent arrears or damage/cleaning at the end of the tenancy. However, it does need to be registered or lodged with a government authorised scheme, such as the Deposit Protection Scheme (DPS), the Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS) or MyDeposits.

Your Quickest Route to Student Tenants

Studentpad is the number one platform for advertising student accommodation. Find student tenants in your city with our modern, fast, and user-friendly databases for student housing.

We currently serve over 100 higher education institutions throughout the UK and counting. Students are online now searching for properties just like yours!

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