Losing the £'s.

Everyone is after losing a few pounds these days - not least Mrs Jackson, sharing my midday constitutional of tea and cakes is begining to take its toll. (Don't tell her I said that will you...). However the easiest way to lose a few £'s when investing is to not take care of the simplest of tasks.

It's worth knowing a few items that will reduce your costs in the early stages of your new property, and I'm talking utility and council tax bills here. Although once you rent out your property your tenants will take care of virtually every bill, at least while you are getting the property ready or waiting for tenants, you can keep the bills to a minimum.

At various property investment seminars that I have given, I mention that you may be able to get the seller to agree to give you access to the property between exchange and completion, in which case it's not an issue, but in many cases you will not have this luxury.

It is important to inform your utility companies straight away if your property is vacant, particularly if your property is still rates based (i.e. not on a meter). And of course in any case as soon as you complete, you should take meter readings (where available) and inform all of the suppliers what those readings are.

At the same time, you should tell the utility company that the property is vacant and UNFURNISHED (this is very important), pending refurbishment. Some utility companies and the council (for council tax), may even send an inspector just to check that it really IS unfurnished. It's important to do this straight away, as especially in the case of the council, they will not allow you to backdate the 'refurbishment' or 'unoccupied' status if you forget to tell them.

By the way, if the inspector comes over and sees even a few boxes, even if you're using the place as storage, they'll classify it as 'furnished' and you'll still get charged the full rate. On the same day, do ask all the utility companies to change any pre-payment meters to account meters. There's nothing more annoying during a refurbishment than for your contractors to 'run out of electricity', or for you to pay off previous occupiers meter debts.

Also, it's a good idea to have water meters installed if they haven't been already. as all this takes ages for the utility companies to organise, it's a good idea to get that sorted straight away. Of course, as soon as the property is furnished and rented, all the utility companies and the council then need to be informed again of the chance of status, and you should take readings from all the meters again, as you only want to pay for the period before your tenants came in.

By remembering these simple tasks it's easy enough to save the pounds and spend them on something worthwhile - maybe even an upper floor renovation for Mrs Jackson ;-)

See you all soon,

Mr Jackson.