Case Study 1: two-bedroom apartment, CB3
Lightening Speed!
The overseas landlord bought an off-plan apartment that was due to complete in June 2021. Xixi managed to obtain access to the apartment between the exchange and completion dates to take photos and videos. We promptly got the adverts over the line and received very positive interests. Many prospective tenants were happy to make offers based on the photos and videos. Xixi chose a very good tenant who outbid the others and agreed to move in on the day of completion. The landlord was overwhelmed that she got the apartment rented from the day she completed the purchase, and we achieved £350 more per month in rent than her expectation.
Case Study 2: one-bedroom apartment, EC2A
Short-term or long-term, we are good at what we do
The landlord of this central London apartment lost his job in 2018 and wanted us to try different avenues to make more profit out of this property, to offset his loss of income. Upon this request, Xixi ran Serviced Accommodation (ie short-term rentals such as Airbnb) from this property successfully and managed to achieve £500 more per month for the landlord. We also manged to apply tax relief on this property which saved the landlord a big sum of money.
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However in 2020 when COVID started, the short-term accommodation market was struck heavily. We made the suggestion to switch back to long-term rentals as soon as possible, which the landlord adopted. We managed to find a good tenant at a reasonable price and this tenant stayed nicely throughout the COVID period. When he decided to move to a different area in December 2021, we found a new pair of tenants quickly at a 20% higher rent than before.
Case Study 3: two-bedroom house, CB1
There is always a solution. We just need to talk.
When the stressed landlord approached Xixi in late 2020, she had run out of ideas. She had a long-standing tenant family who had been living in her house for 8 years at a price considerably lower than the market rate. Everything was fine until they started missing their rent payments persistently over the course of 2020. There were also other issues with the tenants, such as breach of tenancy agreements, refurbishment cost disputes and family relationship breakdowns. Xixi helped the landlord serve notices and visited the tenants multiple times to explain their situation and discussed routes to obtain help. The tenants acknowledged the notices and the information we gave them, and accommodated the viewings for future tenants.
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However, when the new tenants were ready to move in, the incumbent tenants changed their mind and refused to move out. They also involved professionals to represent them.
Consequently, Xixi had hours of conversations with their representatives. We dismissed their unreasonable propositions but showed our open-mindness in reaching a compromise. With the effort from all parties, the landlord agreed to let the tenants stay for another six months when they would continue to look for somewhere else to move to. In the meantime, the tenants have got some financial help to pay up all the rents owed, and started paying regularly a slightly higher rent, albeit still lower than the market rate. Both the landlord and the tenants appreciated the mediation work that Xixi had performed in this process.
