Property CareHome › For landlords
We look after it as though it were ours.
Property care for private landlords across Huntingdonshire. Which, in practice, means two things a landlord actually cares about. The property holds its condition rather than quietly declining between tenancies. And the phone that rings at nine on a Sunday evening is ours, not yours. Underneath the name it is a Room Refresh with a letting date attached, done in the gap rather than around a tenant.
Rental property declines quietly
Nobody decorates a house they do not own. Tenants report the boiler and live with everything else, so the sticking door, the failed sealant, the tired hallway and the garden gone to seed accumulate invisibly across a tenancy. Then the property comes back, and the gap between it and the one down the road that was looked after is suddenly worth real money in rent and in weeks on the market.
Meanwhile the small stuff lands on you at inconvenient hours, and every job means finding somebody, taking a chance on them, chasing the invoice and hoping they turned up.
We do this differently, in three arrangements that fit together.
Three arrangements for landlords
The Between Tenants Refresh
Between tenants, the whole property and garden brought back to standard in one run of work, at one written price. Decorating, repairs, joinery, deep tidy outside, everything on the list. The aim is a property that photographs beautifully and lets quickly, because a week standing empty earns nothing while everything else carries on being due.
How it works →Portfolio Care
More than one property? They go on a single arrangement with scheduled seasonal visits, one point of contact and preferential rates that improve with the number of doors. One relationship instead of a contractor per postcode.
See the terms →Tenant Direct
Your tenant calls us, not you. We take the call, assess, agree what is needed, do the work and invoice you, with photographs and a written record every time. You hear about it once, when it is already solved.
The details →The Between Tenants Refresh
The gap between one tenancy ending and the next beginning is the only window when everything can be done properly at once, and the only period when work costs you nothing in disruption. It is also the most expensive time to be slow, so we treat the clock as part of the brief.
The industry calls that gap a void, and it is the word your agent will use, so we have said it once here and then gone back to plain English. Every week of it costs you a week's rent.
- Full walk-through with you or your agent, and one written price for the lot
- Decorating throughout, or the rooms that need it, with proper preparation
- Every small repair the last tenancy left behind, done in the same run
- Kitchen and bathroom brought back: sealant, grout, doors realigned, handles replaced
- Garden reclaimed, hedges cut, patio cleaned, gates and fences made sound
- Gutters cleared and external joinery checked before winter
- Any compliance work coordinated with registered specialists from our network
- Photographs of the finished property, ready for your listing or your records
A two-bedroom property typically runs £1,800 to £3,500 depending on condition, a three-bedroom £2,500 to £5,000. Portfolio clients are quoted at preferential rates. Everything is priced in writing after a walk-through, and we will tell you which items can wait a tenancy and which cannot.
Portfolio Care
How it works
Your properties go onto one rolling arrangement with scheduled seasonal visits, so gutters, external joinery, sealant and gardens are handled before they become problems rather than after. Rates improve as the portfolio grows, and reactive work is charged at plan rates rather than one-off prices.
What you get back
One monthly invoice, one contact, and a written record for each property showing what was done, what is being watched and what was deliberately left. That record is worth having when a deposit is disputed or a property comes to be sold.
Compliance, coordinated
We are not a compliance company, and we say so. What we do is notice when a gas safety certificate, an EICR or an EPC is due, tell you, and coordinate Gas Safe or NICEIC and NAPIT registered specialists who carry out and certify that work directly for you.
Priority, and its limits
Portfolio clients get first call on the diary, which matters when something goes wrong on a Friday. It does not mean we can be everywhere at once, and we would rather tell you plainly when a job needs somebody sooner than we can be there.
Tenant Direct
This is the arrangement landlords tell us they value most, and it is disarmingly simple. Your tenant is given our number and told to use it for repairs and maintenance. They call us. We assess, agree the work within a spending limit you set, carry it out and invoice you, with photographs before and after.
You can write it straight into the tenancy agreement, and most landlords do: a named maintenance contact, a number, and a clear instruction about what to report and how. Tenants generally prefer it, because they get a tradesperson who turns up rather than a landlord who is on holiday. You prefer it because the first you hear of the dripping tap is a line on an invoice saying it was fixed on Tuesday.
You keep control. We agree a limit under which we simply proceed, usually somewhere between £150 and £400, and anything above it comes to you with a written price before we lift a tool. Emergencies are the obvious exception, and we will always ring you rather than spend your money on a judgement call.
One caveat: we are not an out-of-hours emergency service. We answer during working hours and act quickly, but if a pipe bursts at midnight your tenant needs an emergency plumber, and we will make sure they know that from the start.
A property that always felt looked after is worth more than one that was rescued twice.Why the arrangement pays for itself Read the Book of Care →
The commercial case, plainly
Fewer empty weeks
A property that shows well lets faster. At typical Huntingdonshire rents a fortnight saved is somewhere around £600. Against a two-bed refresh at £3,050 that is a useful dent rather than the whole of it, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. Repeated over several tenancies it is the difference between a property that holds its rent and one that quietly slips behind the street.
Better tenants, staying longer
Tenants who feel looked after treat a property better and renew more often. Turnover is the expensive part of being a landlord, and responsiveness is one of the few levers you control.
Smaller repairs
Everything caught early is cheaper. Sealant renewed is £180; the bathroom floor it would have ruined is not. This is the whole argument for scheduled care rather than reactive calls.
And nothing added for VAT. We are a self-employed business rather than a limited company, and we are not registered for VAT, so a £500 job is £500 rather than £600. On residential lettings that is usually a straight saving, since VAT on work to exempt residential property generally cannot be recovered anyway, though your accountant is the person to confirm what applies to you.
Who we are matters more than usual when you are not there to let us in, and the awkward questions are answered here. If we ever do register, we will tell you before it touches a quote you are holding.
Three more things
The deep clean happens alongside the repairs, not after them. Most turnarounds involve two visits from two trades on two different days, and the cleaner usually comes first, which is the wrong way round. We do the repairs, the touching up and the deep clean in one run: oven, limescale, grout, cupboards inside and out, windows, floors. One contact, one invoice, and the property is ready rather than nearly ready.
We are not a cleaning company and would not pretend to be. If you already have a cleaner you are happy with, keep them and we will work around the visit.
Do not over-specify a rental. Damp and mould complaints are the single most common cause of a tenancy going wrong, so we treat the cause rather than the wall. Solid, plain and hard-wearing beats fashionable every time, because fashionable dates before the tenancy does and damages just the same. We will steer you towards the finish that still looks deliberate in five years rather than the one that photographs well next week.
Between the voids. A property reset between tenants is the expensive way to catch up. Portfolio Care and the care plans are the cheap way not to fall behind, and a tenant who sees somebody every quarter reports the small things instead of living with them until they are large.
Start with one property
Most landlords begin with a single refresh between tenancies and see how it goes. Tell us the address, the state of it and when the tenants leave. We will arrange to walk it, either with you or with your agent, and come back with a written price and a realistic date.