Renting questions.

dennigerz

Hi all,

i plan on renting my house from october for €1000pm, i am completely lost as to what i have to do, i know i have to register with the prtb, but with them do i have to pay for the man and wife that are moving in or just whichever of them signs the lease. They are paying with social welfare cheques of €1000, i have all the forms filled for that. And then what do i have to do with the revenue, i looked at their website and i may as well be looking at the wall, way over my head that stuff.I plan on calling every month to collect the rent. Do i have to contact revenue to declare rent, or is it taken from my wages each week? I'm lost. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated as i have no idea what to do.Many thanks

quietsailor

dennigerz wrote: »

Hi all,
i plan on renting my house from october for €1000pm, i am completely lost as to what i have to do, i know i have to register with the prtb, but with them do i have to pay for the man and wife that are moving in or just whichever of them signs the lease.

http://www.prtb.ie/landlord_pubregfaq.htm
This is for the landlords FAQ - this gives a list of houses that do & don't have to apply to the PRTB. Move around the site and you will be able to download the form for registering for the prtb.

dennigerz wrote: »

Hi all,
I plan on calling every month to collect the rent. Do i have to contact revenue to declare rent, or is it taken from my wages each week?

If your renting out the property as a private individual and not as a registered company you have to declare it as self employed income at the end of the tax year. Save up each month - rule of thumb could be 33% of the rent will be taken as tax (that'll vary with your wages and credits) so you'll never be caught for an amount vastly exceeding that.

The government are also after introducing a new tax called the NPPR (200 squids per year) if you live elsewhere and rent out this house ie it's not your principal residence you have to pay it.
www.nppr.ie

A good site to browse around is www.irishlandlord.com - you can sign up to them and get a lease that is accepted by the PRTB. Also if it ever comes to evicting them and you did register with the PRTB there are notice periods specified on the PRTB website (it varies depending on how long they've been there) and you also HAVE to use a notice of eviction that is written according to PRTB guidelines - I think they have sample ones on the PRTB site.

Here's a few other ideas

1. Insist on a months deposit and a months rent in advance. The Social welfare department pay in arrears so the prospective tenant will have to find the money somewhere else so they may try and argue their way out of it - DON'T give in.

2. Make sure you get the PRTB form (if applicable) signed before they move in.

3. Draw up a six month lease with option to renew.

4. Take photos of the property before they move in, but in their presence, if you have a printer print them off as part of the inventory, Do a detailed inventory before the viewings start. If they want to rent, get them to sign 2 copies. Tell the tenants that everything in the house is working and get them to check it, afterwards allow for a week in which they may find an overlooked fault, better still going room by room draw up a list of items to be checked and/or accounted for in each room e.g
- Sitting room = room light works, couch and chairs present and functional.
- Bathroom = Shower and taps work, drains are free, toilet works, toilet seak is working correctly.
Add that to the inventory and get them to sign it as well.
More than likely a few people will grin at that list, well it's happened to me/my brother and we ended up replacing things that were damagd through tenants negligence - eg a buying a new washing machine because someone left a 4" nail in their pocket and it ripped the plastic around the drum,so we had to buy it because we never checked it before giving their deposit back.

5. It's better to get all the paperwork done BEFORE they move in as then it can't be said that you didn't give them the forms to sign.

6. If they have any complaints tell them you can only receive them by email/post/text - this way you will have a written record of any problems as they happen. If you accept calls without written back up it can degenerate into a he said/she said situation.

7. Regardless of how well they pay the rent/no complaints from the neighbours call up once a month to inspect the house, give a couple of days notice before you do, better still arrange it with them before they move in that you'll call up on the (for example) 1st Monday of each month - changing to Tuesday for Bank Holidays you can make it part of the rent collection.

8. Have you given thought to maintaining the outside of the house which is your responsibility - is the house far away, can you transport a lawnmower back and forth, would you need to buy a cheap argos lawnmower and leave it there, do you have a storage area outside the house (shed?) that you can leave garden tools and maybe spare fittings and fixtures.

9. If renting was easy everyone would be doing it so don't think that it's a case of sitting back and watching the money roll in, you'll have to perform maintenance like when your living there yourself, probably more in fact as they're renting so they won't care as much about the property as you do. Please don't think I'm trying to discourage you, good tenants do make life easy and a little bit of thought makes your life easy. (says he whose taken 10 years to figure out the above ) e.g I filled out my details in the PRTB form once in Word and saved it as a template - it looks much more professional that way.

10. You mentioned they will be paying by social welfare cheques - do you mean the welfare will give them a cheque which they will cash and give to you or do the welfare pay directly to you? In either case set up a seperate bank account for the house, all rent goes into it and all expenses associated with the house should come out of it, that way you can see if your subsidising the house/making a profit and how much.


I hope it all goes well for you

Quietsailor

dennigerz

Thanks very much for all that Quietsailor, it was a great help.Much appreciated