Landlord FAQ's

At Cullen Property we look after your Edinburgh property as if it were our own.

First and foremost, this means finding and letting it to reliable tenants at the highest achievable rent. At the same time, we ensure that your Edinburgh rental property is checked regularly and any maintenance issues or repairs are taken care of in the most cost effective way possible.

We will make sure that the rent is collected and sent to you without having to chase it, and we’ll keep you informed every step of the way.

What’s Included?

1. A free rental valuation of your Edinburgh property and its earning potential. We can also advise you on how to increase its value
2. Full marketing of your Edinburgh rental property in our advertising media, including this and many other websites such as Rightmove, Citylets, Zoopla, On The Market and Lettingweb, ‘To let’ boards, university accommodation fairs and more!
3. The personal touch – we personally show all prospective tenants around your property
4. Referencing tenants – saving you time and inconvenience, and making sure we choose a reliable tenant for your Edinburgh rental property (NB: A fee of £48 is charged for this service for each new tenant.)
5. Preparing and signing lease documentation and a detailed inventory of your property
6. Collecting rent and the deposit on your behalf, transferring the rent by BACS to your bank account by the eighth working day of each month, and providing you with monthly statements
7. Setting up a tenancy deposit scheme (TDS) account, placing funds in the account and issuing certificates to tenants
8. Check-in of new tenants by our own staff, including checking the inventory and providing a full condition report and dated photographic record. We also introduce tenants to all appliances, meters, stopcocks etc.
9. Transferring utilities and council tax into tenant names
10. Liaising with and payment to factoring agencies
11. Regular maintenance inspections and reports completed by our designated Edinburgh Property Manager for your property. We also arrange cost effective repairs, monitor health and safety matters and ensure compliance with all relevant regulation
12. Remarketing your Edinburgh rental property as required at the end of a tenancy
13. Checking tenants out at the end of the lease and agreeing with the tenant the costs of any losses, damage or cleaning to be deducted from the deposit. Organising and managing any works required
14. Full check-out report including inventory, condition report and dated photographic record
15. Repayment of the deposit after making agreed deductions through the chosen tenancy deposit scheme. A keen eye for detail is important here, and 99.6% of deposits were returned by us undisputed because of this!

There are many legal responsibilities you have to consider when investing in and letting property – especially with the new Private Residential Tenancy legislation. However, if you instruct us as your Agent, our expert team will act as your guiding light and ensure your are compliant every step of the way.

It can be very complicated for even the most experienced landlord, so we’ll make sure that you properly understand what is required of you and that your property meet these stringent and constantly changing legal requirements. We’ll introduce you to lawyers (you may already have your own preferred Scottish based lawyer), banks, IFAs and other sources of finance, and tax experts. In short, our investment and management services ensure you are compliant to all relevant rules, regulations and fully meet the legal responsibilities of being a landlord.

Please contact our investment team on 0131 221 1818 to discuss your individual circumstances and we’ll offer free advice for things you need to consider based on your unique situation.

Put simply, convenience, compliance and returns!

As local market experts, we regularly re-appraise our clients’ rental performances at least once a year to ensure market rents are being received. Oftentimes we hear from private landlords with rental figures that have become static over many years. In fact, using a recent example, one landlord’s portfolio rents were £10,850, but should have been receiving £12,250 – a 13% increase!

Compliance with all regulations is a constant challenge for private landlords who may not always have the time or knowledge to keep up to date with the latest legislative changes. For example, the new PRT regime is still causing confusion for many private landlords, with a number still issuing leases which are no longer legally compliant. Unfortunately for them, ignorance of the law is no defence.

Having minimal involvement with the property and tenants through a trustworthy agent, coupled with the administrative ease which a good agent can provide e.g. annual summary for tax returns and the many other convenience aspects, landlords who are distant or have busy family/working lives find our management services make for a stress-free experience for both them and their tenants.

Finally, using an Agent gives access to all the main property portals and a professional vetting and referencing services whenever the property needs to be re-marketed to new tenants. With the new Private Residential Tenancy, it is not uncommon for tenants to submit their 28 days’ notice to terminate their tenancy. Therefore, quickly finding replacement tenants through proactive property marketing through a skilled Agency can minimise these ‘void periods’ and the stress that comes along with them.

We’ve recently helped several portfolio landlords make the switch to our management following dissatisfaction with competing Agents. In each case they’ve seen the rise in rental income more than compensate for the management fees, whilst improving the properties where required and removing all the stress and hassle for them at the same time.

So, click here for a free and instant rental valuation and a friendly member of the Cullen Property team will be in touch to hear about your unique situation and experience to offer some free, expert advice.

In the initial stages of buying a property with us or transferring one you already own, communication between the two parties is frequent to ensure that the agreement is understood on both sides. Once instructed, we will then market your property and find tenants for you.

After this, we will progress to application stage where we reference, background check and select the final candidates. At this stage, we will keep you informed of who we have chosen and let you know more about them.

Once we find tenants for your property we will check them in, manage switch-over of bills such as council tax and then handle all ongoing management of the property and monthly collection of rent.

It totally depends on how hands-on you are and we can adapt our services appropriately – you can trust us to get on with it or we can provide you updates every step of the way, but usually our clients only need to know the essentials.

Absolutely not. We pride ourselves on our transparency, and detail exactly what our clients can expect in person, on phone or email and in our terms of business. This means we don’t advertise low property management fees and rope you into ongoing hidden fees later down the line. What you get is great service you can trust with transparent and reliable costs!