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Heaven Forbid – All the morbid stuff Landlords Should Consider

What’s the worst that could happen?

As landlords, we often have so much on our plates we don’t think about what might happen if we were no longer around. In this blog post I’m going to write my worst fears of what could have happened if my husband Shaun and I hadn’t set up our Will and Protective Property Trust…. so here goes, hold on to your hats, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Our Family have no idea where anything is…

All of our documents are nicely organised in our Google drive, our tenants details stored both in their tenancy agreement and our landlord software… but how would they know that? Without leaving a legacy contact for Google they wouldn’t have any access to our GDrive or Chrome Password manager.

Solution: Save your family some heart ache and set one up now > Go to Google Legacy
Even better solution: Set up a Legacy Guardian account and put a note letting them know where it is and how they can access it.

HMRC want paid within 6 months, but my family don’t find all my assets before then…

Without an up to date ledger of your assets your family could potentially miss some of your assets and not declare them. Months later they will be liable for not only the tax but potentially fined or charged interest on the missing payment.

Solution: Keep a live ledger of your assets in a spreadsheet, we have a Net Worth Calculator spreadsheet that you can get for free!
Even better solution: Our app will connect to the live feeds from your open banking, as well as pull valuations on your property from Zoopla (I know I know it’s never accurate, but it’s better than nothing), crypto stored in CoinBase (more coming soon), and any pensions or other investments. Almost all major and challenger bank is listed if it’s not you can add it yourself, updating is a little more manual, but it’s still better than nothing. Oh and we also pull your credit file and connect to your businesses via Companies House… amazing right?

My tenants will stop paying when they find out I’ve passed away…

It could happen! Our tenants are lovely but when there’s no one at the end of the phone managing repairs and making sure the rent collection is well managed things could slip. Obviously this is more relevant to those self managing but even those with a letting agent could be in trouble, especially if the rent payments continue to be paid to the deceased account rather than the estate… all income derived from an estate needs to be taxed, and if it’s not going to the right place HMRC will get their claws into it one day in the future!

Solution: I know some of you will say “well that’s what I have a solicitor for” but would your solicitor be coming to your home to rifle through your filing cabinet, or searching through GDrive? It’s best to follow the solution for point one to ensure your family have all of your tenants details. However, you need to take into account that your family will already be stressed enough contacting family about your death, never mind talking to your tenants to make sure their rent is paid on time.
Even better solution: Your Legacy Guardian can contact your letting agent and arrange to give them your executors details including a bank account to pay the rent into. If you don’t have a lettings agent we can arrange one for 6 months to manage the transition and take the burden away from your family.

My family want to sell but a certificate has expired!…

As we all know selling a property is difficult enough, never mind selling one with tenants. Your family could sell with the tenants and usually receive a lower valuation as the pool of potential buyers will be smaller, or they can evict your tenants and sell the property with vacant possession.

The reality is, that either way they will need all of their certificates and legal requirements up to date.

Solution: As mentioned above having everything in order is so important here. Making sure your letting agent keeps everything up to date or that your self managed property is passed to a suitable person to manage the day to day.
Even better solution: Your Legacy Guardian with their expert property knowledge will inform your family of the two different valuations for vacant or tenanted sales, they will find a buyer and deal with absolutely everything to do with the eviction or tenanted sale. They will keep your family up to date with a weekly catch up email and use great quality conveyancers to process the sale – all approved by your family first…. or even approved by you if you want to get more detailed in your ledger.

Let’s stop there…

I think that is enough, you all get the point I think. What we want to get across is that there are lots of things that ‘could’ happen, and at a time in their life when your family is experiencing grief and upset, we can help you care for them when they need it the most.

Get that peace of mind by joining us at Legacy Guardians today, plans start from just £14.99 per month.

Take care,

Vikki x

Chief Legacy Guardian ??

Legacy Planning can be complicated… time to stop researching and start doing!

Vikki Baptie

NRLA Accredited Landlord and IPW Professional Will Writer

I’m Vikki, the founder of Legacy Guardians. I hope this article was helpful, but I can probably guess that it’s about time that you stopped researching and got on with getting everything in order.

I know how it can be hard juggling everything with 15 properties, 3 kids, 1 dog, 1 Property Business and another couple of trading businesses things like succession and legacy planning usually go on the backburner. (thank goodness for my business & life partner Shaun!)

Take back your time, and gain that all important financial peace of mind by working through my Landlord Legacy Framework.