Services & Fees For Landlords

The directors have been working in the property market for the past 12 years. They have lived in Dartford their whole lives so they know everything about the local area. They have each built their own property portfolios whereby they have had first-hand experience of buying, selling, letting and managing multiple properties. They have also carried out refurbishments and development projects in the Kent area.

You will be assigned one of the directors to deal with your transaction on a one-to-one basis from the start to finish. We refer to this as a Personal Property Manager (PPM).

We are an independently owned estate agent. This means we can solely focus on providing the best customer service. 95% of all our new business comes from repeat customers or referrals from landlords or sellers who have used us in the past. See our reviews.

Other competing estate agents are owned by large multinational companies and then franchised to local branches. They are paid on a commission basis and driven by high targets from their head office. This results in them being focused on a quick sale or letting and not on building long business relationships with landlords and sellers.

Once we have received the signed Agency Agreement and the keys from you, we will endeavour to take the photos and have your property on the market the next day. We will give your property maximum exposure by marketing it on the major online portals, on our website, in our branch window, on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Google. We will then carry out a block viewing and select the best tenant.

85% of our properties are let within 2 weeks.

We have our own Gas Safe engineers, NICEIC electricians, plumbers, decorators, handymen, flooring fitters, FENSA double glazers, roofers, builders, carpenters, gardeners, drainage engineers and cleaners. This means the price of maintenance works carried out by our technicians will be much cheaper than any other letting agent. Click here to find out more about our Property King Team.

Other letting agents source external contractors to carry out repairs to the properties they manage. This means their prices will be higher and they cannot control the quality of their work.

We regularly achieve 3 - 6% above the market rental value. See the below examples:

Fleet Road, Dartford – 4 bedroom house
Market value: £1,800 pcm
Achieved by Property King: £1,900 pcm
Additional income for landlord: £100 pcm/ £1,200 per year
Percentage change: + 5.56% increase

Tattershall Court, Dartford – 1 bedroom flat
Market value: £1,000 pcm
Achieved by Property King: £1,050 pcm
Additional income for landlord: £50 pcm/ £600 per year
Percentage change: + 5% increase

William Mundy Way, Dartford – 2 bedroom & 2 bathroom apartment
Market value: £1,700 pcm
Achieved by Property King: £1,750 pcm
Additional income for landlord: £50 pcm/ £600 per year
Percentage change: + 2.94% increase

Property King’s checks

We carry out 10 checks on each tenant and analyse their past 6 months history. Our checks are carried out in-house so we can control the quality of them. Our Enhanced Tenant Checking Process is one of the main reasons that Landlords tend to choose us over other letting agents.

Our Enhanced Tenant Checks include:

1. ID verification.
2. Proof of current address.
3. VISA and settlement status.
4. Right to rent in the UK.
5. Payslip check to verify income.
6. Employment reference to confirm current employment, position and length
7. Employment contract check.
8. Previous landlord or letting agent reference to confirm rent payments were made on time and that the property was looked after.
9. 6 months bank statement check to analyse incomings and outgoings.
10. Credit check.

Other letting agent’s checks

Typically other letting agents only carry out 9 checks and only analyse the tenant's past 3 months history. They will sub-contract the tenant checking process to an external company to save on administration costs. This means they cannot control the quality of the checks.

1. ID verification
2. Proof of current address
3. VISA and settlement status
4. Right to rent in the UK
5. 3 months payslips
6. Employment reference
7. Previous landlord or letting agent reference
8. 3 months bank statement history
9. Credit check

Click here to see our Full Management Fees & Agency Agreement..

95% of our landlords choose this option because:

1. They have mortgage payments to make every month and they want “rent protection” to ensure they receive the rent every month. Rent protection ensures you will be paid the rent even if the tenant looses their job; or becomes ill and unable to work; or stops paying for any other reason whilst in occupation.


2. New regulations and laws are introduced so often that private landlords are unable to keep up with them. This means they are at risk of being fined thousands of pounds for non compliance. For example, did you know that a landlord must give a tenant the “How to rent guide” before they sign the tenancy agreement otherwise the landlord has breached the Landlord & Tenant Act.


3. This service also includes “legal expenses protection”. This means that in the unfortunate event that a tenant has to be evicted the legal costs of a solicitor and the court fees will be covered. A recent article reported that the average cost of evicting a tenant is more than £30,000. So without this protection the landlord would have pay this cost from their own savings.


4. Landlords usually have full time jobs and cannot be on hand 24 hours a day and 365 days a year to take care of maintenance issues. What would you do if you had a leak at your rental property at 11:30pm on a Sunday? Property King has engineers available no matter what time or day it is.

Click here to see our Let Only Fees & Agency Agreement.

Only 5% of our landlords choose this option.

This tends to be chosen by those landlords who are able to devote their full time to the management of their rental properties.

But we are commonly experiencing that even these types of landlords do not want the stress of dealing with tenants, compliance, paperwork and repairs. So more often than not they are also selecting full management these days.

Most landlords would rather be sipping a Margarita on a sunny beach abroad.

85% of our properties are let within 2 weeks.

Yes. We have tenants who register on our website and in our office in preparation for when a matching property becomes available.

No. We deduct all of our fees from the first month’s rent paid by the tenant.

If you are worried about this then you may be more suited for the Full Management With Rent Protection Service.

We carry out periodic inspections at the property and we will take photos and email them to you.

This is our process:

1. The tenant will inform us of the issue.
2. We will then talk the tenant through how to isolate the problem if needed i.e. shut off the mains water.
3. We will then inspect the problem and take photos.
4. We will then send you the photos and give you a quote for the repair by email.
5. We will then wait for your approval of the quote.
6. If you give us your approval, then we will get our in-house engineer to carry out the repair.
7. Once the repair is completed we will deduct the cost from the next rent paid by the tenant and send you photos of the finished repair.

Property King are members of the UK Association of Letting Agents (UKALA).

This is a professional membership body which supports its agent members to stay legally compliant in an ever-changing regulatory environment.

Property King are members of the Deposit Protection Service (DPS).

Since 2007 the Government introduced new legislation stating all deposits taken from tenants must protected by one of the available schemes, such as the DPS, My Deposits or the Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS). If this is not complied with by the landlord then then could be fined up to 3x the deposit amount.

Example
If a landlord rents their property for £1,000 per month but does not protect the deposit. This means they could be taken to court by the tenant and the judge could award the tenant £3,000 plus the legal costs the tenant spent on taking the case to court, which could be another £2,000 - £5,000. This means the landlord is at risk of loosing £5,000 - £8,000 in this example.

Property King will register your deposit with the DPS so you will not be at risk.

Property King are members of The Property Ombudsman (TPO).

The TPO is professional redress body which sets out good practice for estate and letting agents in the UK. Only agents who adhere to their strict rules are given membership.

Property King are members of Client Money Protection (CMP).

CMP protects landlords, sellers and tenants from misappropriation of client monies by estate agents.

Property King are members of the Property Redress Scheme (PRS).

The PRS was started by the Government in 2014 and it is an independent redress scheme to which consumers can refer to should they have a complaint about an estate or letting agent.