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Over a quarter of the UK’s workforce has been furloughed, many others have been made redundant or are self-employed and unable to work during lockdown. While some homeowners have been able to take a break from their mortgage payments, tenants facing financial struggles may have had difficult conversations with landlords about rent payments.
Some tenants have chosen to move out of their rented accommodation and stay with friends or family during lockdown. This is either temporary because they live alone, or permanently because they’re furloughed or unemployed and unable to pay the rent. The possibility of missing rent payments or ending contracts early has also left a lot of landlords in a precarious situation. Especially considering the government’s temporary ban on evictions from private rentals during the lockdown.
All of this has caused severe strain on the relationship between tenants and landlords in a lot of cases. Now that lockdown is easing, people are back in work, and property viewings can resume, there are still likely to be some long-lasting effects on the landlord-tenant relationship. We’ve outlined some of the changes and how the landlord-tenant relationship might look post-Covid.
Landlords Will Move Online
As with a lot of other industries, the coronavirus pandemic has forced landlords to move as much of their operations online as possible. This is unlikely to be reversed post-Covid — renters will be looking for properties online more than ever before. They’ll expect landlords to have a professional-looking website, good photos of their properties, video tours, and detailed information.
Tenants will also expect to be able to conduct most of the renting process online – from email or live chat enquiries to video calls for identity checks rather than in-person meetings. Paperwork can also be completed online – electronic signatures, for instance, are a much quicker way to get contracts signed than waiting for a paper copy.
Flexible Property Viewings
The way the housing market has adapted to lockdown restrictions has set a new standard for property viewings. Pre-recorded video tours or virtual tours via video calls allow for a lot more flexibility for both landlords and tenants. Tenants can more easily view properties in a video from another city if they’re planning a big move, or they can fit it in around their working hours.
For landlords, video tours will give potential tenants a much clearer picture of whether a property is suitable for them before taking the time to do an in-person viewing. It’s important to record a thorough video tour and to keep it up to date between new tenants so that it accurately reflects the property.
Landlords Need to Build a Brand
Renters moving post-Covid may have had a bad experience with their previous landlords. It’s important to have a reputation as a good landlord, and to build trust with potential tenants.
Establish an online presence through social media and your website. This will help give people an insight into how you operate as a landlord. Brush up your site’s About Us page — it’s an opportunity to share your business’s story, your values, and to introduce yourself. Post regular content on social media; you can share useful information for renters, updates about properties to rent, and connect with potential tenants.
Flexibility on Deposits
People who need to find a new place to live after being furloughed or unemployed during the Coronavirus pandemic might not have a deposit saved up. Landlords might need to offer some flexibility when it comes to a deposit. There are zero deposit schemes, or it could be possible to ask for a reduced deposit or no deposit but higher monthly rent payments.
That being said it’s more important than ever for landlords to do proper financial checks and get references from previous landlords – if someone is looking to move in a hurry it could be because they’ve missed rent payments or caused problems.
Changing Requirements for Rental Properties
Lockdown has changed a lot of people’s perspectives anyone looking to rent post-Covid is likely to have different requirements and considerations. People may be considering whether they could stand to be stuck inside the prospective property for months. With many people having to work from home during lockdown, setting up a temporary office space, they might be looking at properties with more space for a permanent home office.
Places will also need to be thoroughly cleaned and well maintained as there’s going to be lots of empty properties giving renters plenty of choice about where to live.
Flexibility for Existing Tenants
Although lockdown is easing, there’s still a long way to go before things are back to something like normal. With the end of the furlough scheme in sight there’s potential for more people to find themselves redundant or out of work later in the year. If you’ve got good tenants you should do whatever you can to keep them.
Consider how flexible you could afford to be if any of your tenants are struggling, and tell your tenants to get in touch with you before deciding to move out if they think they might not be able to pay.
The landlord-tenant relationship is likely to be more strained in the coming months as both tenants and landlords will face financial uncertainty post-Covid. However, long term it has created more flexibility in the rental sector and pushed more of the business online, which can benefit both landlords and tenants.
