Do You Know Your ‘Access’ Rights As a Landlord?
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In the last few blogs I covered some of the rules and regulations regarding visiting the property and what your rights are as well as those of your tenants.
Another important thing to know is that you do have a right to ‘reasonable access’ to the property, for inspections and repair. However, your tenants still have the right to override any reasons you might have that you think give you ‘reasonable access’. Again this is weighted in favour of the tenants and it is up to them to grant you access rather than it being the other way around.
This highlights exactly why it is a very good idea to keep your tenants onside and ensure you have a good working relationship with them.
Unless you have a court order or there is a real emergency, like a fire, you cannot enter the property without the tenants consent. Ignoring their refusal to grant you access and entering the property using your keys is classed as trespassing and could get you into a lot of trouble.
If you do want to keep an eye on your property, and check that is in good hands during the tenancy then it is a good idea to arrange quarterly inspections in advance with your tenants. Discussing this during the signing of the tenancy agreement will give them plenty of notice of your intentions to inspect the property a few times throughout the year.
Even if the tenants seem like the most responsible people you’ve ever met, I still recommend you carry out quarterly inspections. This can help you to spot any major problems that haven’t been reported to you, allow them to be fixed before they become even bigger problems further down the line.
Whatever inspection schedule you choose to implement, just make sure it is pre-arranged beforehand with your tenants and they are happy to grant you access to the property. In our next blog we will take a look at how best to go about ending the tenancy with the least amount of problems.
P.s.
Ending the tenancy in the right way is just as important as starting it, so make sure you keep an eye out for my next blog.