To manage your property maintenance remotely, you’ll need local contacts you can trust, strong communication skills and might want to enlist the help of a professional property management company for smooth operations.
Whether you have a second property in another location that you want to rent out, you’ve inherited a property located somewhere else or have invested in a property in another city or country to diversify your property portfolio, there are various occasions when you might need to manage property maintenance remotely.
Luckily, we can help. At J Property Management London, we can handle your property management needs – from helping with certain tasks to providing full property management solutions. We’re on hand 24/7 so that you don’t have to be, for seamless, local property management, wherever you are in the world. Get in touch today to see how we can help!
Ways To Manage Property Maintenance Remotely
Here are some of the top ways to manage property maintenance remotely:
Establish A Communication Channel
As a remote landlord, it can be good to have a designated communication channel for anything related to your property – such as a separate phone number or email address. This is especially helpful if you have multiple properties to manage as part of a property portfolio. It also helps you keep your property separate from the rest of your life and stop you being inundated with messages from tenants – even more so if you’re in a different time zone.
Communication between remote landlords and tenants can be frustrating for everyone involved if you don’t set clear ground rules to begin with. It could be worth being clear from the outset about what tenants can contact you about. Better yet, work with a property management company who can be on call 24/7 so that your tenants have ongoing support without you having to be glued to your phone.
If you’re looking for property management support, contact us today to see how we can offer on-the-ground, round-the-clock support for your tenants.
Know Your Property
Before renting out your property, make sure to familiarise yourself with it – for example, know where to find the main stop valve, fuse box, air conditioning, etc. and how they work. If you’re managing property maintenance remotely, you’ll need to help tenants know where to find these things and how to get them working again! In the case of a more complex issue, it’s helpful to have pictures of these things and their locations to communicate with any contractors you hire for repairs.
Or, work with a property management company like J Property Management. We learn your property like the back of our hand so that we can support your property maintenance needs as thoroughly as possible. Whatever issues arise, we’re on the ground to deal with it – quickly and professionally.
Have A Trusted Network To Help You
When you’re managing properties remotely, having people you can trust in the local area is going to help you out massively – from someone to have a spare set of housekeys to someone who can handle repairs.
If you’re managing a property remotely, you’ll have to invest time and energy into getting to know the people around the property. This is easier if the property is somewhere you have lived before. You might already have neighbours, handymen, plumbers, electricians, cleaning staff or other contractors that you can trust to help you out. However, if you’re remotely managing a property in an area you’re not familiar with, this is going to be more tricky.
Working with a trusted local property management company will save you having to ask around or try and grow a network of people you can count on. At J Property Management, we have trusted contractors in all areas of London that can get repairs and maintenance carried out quickly, professionally and affordably. We’re on hand for the tenants of our landlords’ London properties 24/7 and can act quickly if anything goes wrong.
Contact us to get started today.
Thorough Tenant Screening
Having tenants you can trust will play a huge role in your peace of mind while you’re managing a property remotely. Without the ability to go and check on your tenants often, you’ll need to trust that they are reliable people who are looking after your property with great care and can pay their rent on time.
From the outset, you can put effort into your tenant screening to ensure you’re getting the best tenants including:
- Asking for references from previous landlords or employers
- Copies of payslips and bank statements to check financial stability
- Running a credit check where necessary
- Requesting a guarantor (including drafting a guarantor agreement)
For the most part, these checks can be carried out remotely but can only go so far in getting to know who’ll be living in your property. Working with a property management company or specifically outsourcing tenant sourcing will take care of this for you.
At J Property Management, our Let Only service covers the process of finding high-quality tenants – from conducting screenings and meeting tenants personally to thorough screening and referencing tenants, drafting tenancy agreements and ensuring a smooth move-in day. Contact us today to find out if this could be the right service for you.
Online Rent Collection System
Whether you’re 5KM or 50,000KM away from your rental property, popping round to collect rent every month is probably not a possibility.
Luckily, rent collection can easily be managed remotely. There’s various different payment platforms available so it’s worth shopping around to see what is the best for the specific needs of you and your tenants.
Communicate with your tenants about setting up a standing order meaning that the money will be paid directly from their account into the bank on a set date in accordance with the tenancy agreement.
The only downside with managing rent collection remotely is that it only works well if your tenants pay rent on time, each time. If there are issues such as late payments or missed payments, it’s difficult to deal with this from far away – especially if you have the added difficulty of a different timezone.
At J Property Management, our rent collection and management service is designed specifically for landlords who want to guarantee rental income without any of the headache of chasing missed payments.
Contact us today to find out how we can help you manage rent collection.
Schedule Regular Inspections
As you’re not there to check on the property whenever there’s an issue, it’s good to take a proactive approach and schedule regular inspections. This means that you’ll catch any issues as soon as possible, address them quickly and avoid costly repairs or emergency maintenance.
It will also uphold your responsibility as a landlord to provide a safe and habitable home – something that will be even more important after the introduction of this year’s new rules for landlords.
These checks could be carried out by someone in your trusted network or will be one of the main responsibilities assumed by the property management company if you choose to work with them.
Remember to make sure to get written permission from your tenants before sending someone to inspect the property.
Do I Need To Hire A Property Management Company To Manage Property Maintenance Remotely?
You don’t need to but it’s recommended as it saves a lot of time, energy and stress. If you’re a remote landlord, working with a local property management company means that you’ll always have someone on the ground to help your tenants. Whether it’s conducting property viewings, organising repairs or even collecting rent, having a property management company means that you can have total peace of mind about the daily running of your property – even miles away.
If you weigh up all the costs of trying to manage a property remotely (including potentially having to travel to the property in case of an emergency, investing time in getting to know local contractors when you don’t live in the area or having to hire someone to manage key collection), the fees of a property management company may seem small in comparison.
Not only that, they ensure that your property is managed seamlessly, professionally and, if you choose, totally without your involvement – a huge plus for remote landlords.
Manage London Property Remotely With J Property Management
If you’re a London landlord finding it difficult to manage your property maintenance remotely, we can help.
At J Property Management, we can be your trusted property management partner on the ground. From our network of local contractors to our commitment to be there 24/7 for your tenants, we give your property management the personal touch even when you’re miles away.
Whether you’re looking to outsource property management of one property or an entire property portfolio, we’ll treat your property with great care and make sure it’s well looked after in your absence.
Contact us today to see how we can help manage your property maintenance and more remotely.
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