With the chaos of Christmas behind us and Spring just around the corner, now is a good time to start planning for any annual maintenance or spring cleaning you may need to carry out.

Maintaining your rental property is an essential part of being both a landlord and a tenant.

Landlords

Gutter Cleaning. The unseasonably warm weather before Christmas meant a lot of trees held on to their leaves for longer than usual. Now is a good time (with all the rain forecast!) to look at getting your gutters cleared. Blocked gutters can cause damp issues within the property.

Boiler Servicing. Is 2019 the year you commit to annual boiler servicing? Getting your boiler serviced every year can reduce the risk of costly breakdowns.

Budgeting for Emergencies. When reviewing your finances for the new year, did you budget for emergency maintenance? We all hope it won’t come to it and at McCartan, we want to work with you to minimise the risk, but boilers do break and pipes do burst. If you can put a small amount of the rent you receive away each month for those rare emergencies, you’ll be more prepared should the worst happen.

If you are a self-managing landlord, now might be a good time to check in with your tenants, plan any property visits, and ensure they know how to best contact you to report any maintenance issues.

Tenants

Gardening. Gardening is the major one! As the grass starts to grow again, plan to mow your lawns, trim the hedges, and get a jump-start on any weeding. If you’re struggling to manage your garden or you just don’t have the time, let us know and we can recommend a gardener to you (at your own cost).

Bleed radiators. If your radiators aren’t heating up properly, they might need bleeding. This is tenant responsibility, and helps keep the heating system healthy.

Mould and Mildew. If you have any, make sure you wipe it down, and heat and ventilate your property properly to avoid reoccurrence. Rent Smart Wales produced a handy guide on preventing and managing mould and mildew – you can click here to take a look.

Remember to report any maintenance issues as soon as they arise. Managed tenants can report maintenance to us through the “report maintenance” button on our website. We’ll be sending out an email shortly to remind you of our out of hours emergency maintenance mobile number, too.

If you’d like recommendations for qualified, insured contractors, or if you’re looking for a proactive managing agent, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.  You can call the team in the office on 01792 430100, or click here to send an email.