Running your let: operations guides for UK landlords

Most buy-to-let stock is leasehold, and a leaseholder landlord sits between two sets of rules that can contradict each other: your lease and the Renters’ Rights Act. Subletting consent, service charges, Section 20 major works, and the pet clause problem.

The previous landlord will not reply, and the government has just confirmed it has no plans to make them. What the minister actually said, which alternative checks prove what, and where each one still leaves you exposed.

How to spot tenant fraud before you hand over the keys — fake payslips, made-up employer and landlord references, borrowed ID and guarantor fraud, and the checks that catch them.

What 820 live tenancies on LetCompliance reveal about 2026: properties let in 3 to 5 days, average rent of £1,050 outside London and £1,920 in it, rent arriving with about 5% slippage, and a 72/100 average compliance score. A data snapshot across the whole let, not just compliance.

Every empty week is rent you never get back. The 2026 system for landlords and agents to advertise, screen and let fast: where to list, the photos and copy that fill viewings, how to price within the rent bidding ban, and how to go from advert to signed tenancy in days.

67% of UK landlords use spreadsheets to track compliance. Here's why that's dangerous, and what the alternative looks like.

UK full-management fees run 10–18% + VAT, roughly £2,000–£3,600/year on a typical £1,500 pcm let. Self-managing saves it but you absorb every compliance risk. Side-by-side cost, time and tribunal-evidence comparison so you can decide in 10 minutes.

The whole job, start to finish: advertise, take applications, view, reference, sign the tenancy, hand over the right documents, protect the deposit, collect the rent, and stay compliant. The end-to-end 2026 letting process for a self-managing landlord — in the order it actually happens.

An empty property is the most expensive thing a landlord owns — no rent, and often a council tax bill too. The practical 2026 playbook for cutting voids: advertise before the old tenant leaves, keep a waiting list, price to let, and turn a property around fast.

Standing order, Direct Debit, cash, an app? How you collect the rent decides how often it arrives late and how much chasing you do. The 2026 comparison for landlords, the one-month rent-in-advance cap, and how to make paying the easy option.

Everyone writes about getting rid of bad tenants. Keeping a good one is worth far more — every year they stay is a void you did not have and a re-let you did not pay for. The 2026 guide to tenant retention: what makes good tenants leave, and how to make them stay.

A repair reported and forgotten is how a £120 job becomes a disrepair claim. The 2026 system for handling maintenance: logging the report, your legal repair duties, triaging by urgency, briefing contractors, and keeping the paper trail that protects you.

Being a landlord is really a set of recurring deadlines — gas, EICR, EPC, deposit, Right to Rent, rent reviews and tax — each with its own clock. The 2026 calendar of what falls due and when, so nothing lapses into a fine because you did not know it was a deadline.

Re-typing the same data into three tools, referencing that happens somewhere else, compliance you track from memory, reports that take an evening — if any of these sound familiar, your setup is costing you more than the software would. The seven signs it is time to switch, for landlords and agents.

Standing orders are set up by the tenant and free; Direct Debits are set up by the landlord/agent and let you change the amount without asking. Which one collects rent more reliably in 2026, what each costs, and which one wins for the post-Section 21 regime where every missed payment matters.

Under the new Assured Periodic Tenancy regime (from 1 May 2026) a tenant can leave on 2 months’ notice from day one — no fixed term to break. That is a big change from the AST world. What still applies, what tenants owe if they leave short of notice, and how landlords should handle mid-tenancy departures.

Rent reporting services promise to build a tenant’s credit score by sending on-time rent payments to Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. In 2026 the main options are CreditLadder, Canopy, Experian Boost and (through banking) Rental Exchange. Do they work — and is there anything in it for landlords?

Tenants increasingly ask for EV charging. When you need planning permission (usually you don't), the landlord chargepoint grant (75% up to £500 per socket from April 2026), the infrastructure grant, freeholder and lease consent, who installs and owns it, and whether the numbers stack up.

You are not locked in forever. Check the notice period and the continuing-commission trap first, then the clean handover: deposit, certificates, keys, tenant data and rent records. What to get from your agent, and how to self-manage or move to a new one without dropping a compliance ball.