Oakley Property, Brighton

Whether you are considering buying a property to rent or are considering renting your own property out, then we can provide a service to suit your needs.

We market all our properties firstly on our website www.oakleyproperty.com which is updated daily. We are receiving between 7000 hits a month to our website alone.

Our advanced computer system will then automatically upload your property onto www.rightmove.co.uk and www.onthemarket.com, both of which are searchable 24 hours a day 7 days a week. We have a dedicated team of staff committed to finding a good tenant for your property as quickly as possible.

Our prominent town centre office attracts a lot of professional tenants who work in the area and are looking for property in the city. Being so ideally located on Marlborough Place means most people in Brighton would have passed our office at some point on their way through the city, by car or by foot. Our back light LED window display ensures your property can be seen day and night.

All viewings to the property will be accompanied by a member of our staff in order to maintain the security of your property, to avoid time wasting and to ensure the key letting features of your property are highlighted. We will select from our enquiries, those applicants which suit your requirements and the ones that match your property. Once a potential tenant has been identified, we ask them for a £200 holding deposit and referencing fees to secure the property whilst we conduct our very stringent referencing procedure to establish whether they are right for us.

Once we have negotiated and confirmed the initial terms, we will proceed with the referencing of the applicant(s). We use a professional referencing company. They will take up the following references: credit check, employment, previous Landlord. The cost of this is covered by the tenant(s).

In the event that an applicant is in a slightly different situation i.e. someone who may have just returned from traveling and therefore has no recent employment history, we will establish what they were doing before they traveled, confirm their new position and also ask them to provide a Guarantor or pay 6 month's rent in advance. We would also fully reference the guarantor. In some instances we ask for bank statements and wages slips.

We use a professional Inventory Company, who will mark down every item in the property for inclusion on the Inventory and who will also produce a Schedule of Condition together with digital dated photographs. The tenant will always sign to acknowledge the Inventory and Schedule of Condition. This is a very important document and is vital to the successful running of a tenancy which makes claiming any money from a tenants deposit if a property requires cleaning or maintenance at the end of the tenancy much more straight forward. They will also take meter readings.

When all checks are complete and you have given your approval we will prepare the tenancy agreement and all legal notices the tenant will sign a six month Assured Short hold Tenancy Agreement unless both parties would prefer a twelve month tenancy. The first six or twelve months are a fixed term. We can sign on your behalf and will forward the first month's rent to you. For fully managed properties we do advise the Utility companies of the new tenancy and provide them with meter readings on your behalf. We cannot however arrange for the disconnection of telephone lines or the redirection of mail to a new address.

The new tenant must provide the required advance rent and deposit in cleared funds before agreements are signed and keys handed over. It is required to give each tenant their own set of keys. Our trained staff will serve and explain all the necessary legal documentation and agree the Inventory and Schedule of Condition. We will then provide you and the tenants with signed copies of the Tenancy Agreement, Inventory and Schedule of Condition. Tenants also complete a standing order at this stage to cover subsequent rental payments as this method proves to be the most effective in receiving prompt payments.

Throughout the tenancy, if fully managed, we will deal with the day to day care of your property in order to safeguard your interests. We are happy to work with any preferred contractors that you may have, or we can provide you with one of ours. Either way we will take every reasonable measure to ensure that your property is protected. We are the tenant(s) point of contact thus releasing you from any minor irritating problems which have a habit of occurring at the most inconvenient of times.

On all of our fully managed properties, we conduct regular inspections and again we use a professional company to carry out our inventories, thus establishing that the tenants are caring for your property as you would expect. A written reported will be prepared outlining our findings and copies sent to Landlord.

When a tenancy is due to end, we will undertake a final inspection to establish the condition of the property, compared to the description contained in the original inventory and then establish if any works or cleaning is required at the cost of the tenant. Once this is agreed we will return the tenants deposit.