
Paperwork is such a vital part of running a business. That being said, it is time-consuming as well as stressful at times. If you do not have good systems in place to keep up to date then you could find that money, energy, time or a combination of the three will be lost.
Here are a few reasons to get your property admin on point!
Property Sales
If you work in the property business, you’ll know how annoying it is when you’re buying a house and there are documents missing. But then again, when you purchase said house, you never find the time to get a robust system in place for your property documents so when you come to pass that property on you’re often left scrambling to find those items yourself!
What you should look to create is a folder containing all of the history regarding a specific property, such as the documents you got given when you bought the property, the insurance you took out and a schedule of upgrades you have made over the years; including Fensa Certificates for windows and Installation Certificates for major gas and electric system upgrades.
You will also need to include the mortgage contract, and any other debt secured against the property. This will help you to keep up to date on the status of a property, making for an easy sales process. But best of all should anything happen to you in the meantime your family will have an easier ride knowing that you kept everything up to date in a central location.
Power of Attorney
If something should happen to you, or your spouse and you end up needing to exercise power of attorney then having an organised filing system will make their, or your, life a whole lot easier.
Without a basic system for storage of documents, you may find that you lose out on money, that mistakes are made and even that something simple, like rent becoming overdue could end up in court.
Although we like to think we are, we’re not indestructible and thinking ahead in terms of your life is just as important as thinking ahead with your next investment.
HMRC Investigations
The time may come when HMC decide to investigate you, and unfortunately after speaking with Vantage, a Tax Investigation Specialist company, we have found they are increasingly targeting property investors because of the complex changes they have made to the mortgage interest submission meaning that mistakes are often made.
If this is the case then you will be a step ahead of them by making that you are keeping records of your income, your expenses, and any mortgage interest costs, especially that on a further advance or remortgage.
Keeping a schedule of finance changes backed up with a folder containing all your mortgage offers is the best way to cover your back.
Legacy Guardians will help you to organise everything but we also recommend a membership with the NRLA (National Residential Landlords Association) or FSB (Federation of Small Business) who both offer free Tax Investigation Insurance, along with many other great benefits.
Illness
If you should fall ill, find yourself with some mental health problems, or if you are not going to be able to fulfil your duties for a couple of weeks due to an injury then you will need someone who can take the reigns for you. If you have someone like this, then that’s great.
That being said, if you do not have documents organised clearly and concisely then this will make their job ten times harder. Your tenants may grow frustrated, and you’ll be powerless to do anything about it.
One way for you to combat this would be for you to arrange any notes or texts that you have received about certain tenants in a folder. You might also want to use a digital management system, like Landlord Studio (this is the one we use) or Hammock.
Either way, having up to date records never hurts, and if you lose your phone, you’ll be glad that you had a backup of the quick conversations you have had, should something happen.
Get in touch
Here at Legacy Guardians, we’re building a team of Specialist Property Administrators focused on organising Landlords’ important documents into a Digital Vault; with the ultimate aim of supporting their loved ones through Probate Administration after they pass away.
But more than that, once everything is uploaded we can help keep you organised for the dreaded HMRC tax investigation and hopefully look to give you some help with planning for retirement and inheritance tax.
Best of all, once live we’re hopefully going to offer free specialist landlord wills and £500,000 in free landlord probate administration.
Please contact us on hello@legacyguardians.co or any of the details below to find out more about how we can help you to get that all-important financial peace of mind.