Whilst short term lets form a large and buoyant sector of the London rental market and my landlord friend has many short term tenants she still feels that this type of letting arrangement is still much more problematic than it ought to be. One of the main problems my friend has is her reliance on overseas tenants that form a large part of her unit lets at any one time. In particular the lack of a robust tenant vetting system to cater for tenants moving from house to house in London is a key problem for my friend. She asserts that rent collection and arrears problems are rife as she simply (as a full time working mother) does not have the time or, if honest, the desire to be a residential landlord committing all of her time to her property portfolio. Another issue that she argues leads ultimately to rent collection issues with tenants is the fact that many property managers or managing agents are not willing to take on a property portfolio on behalf or residential landlords of the majority of the units are occupied by short term lets.

Their is little doubt that residential landlords, particularly in London, would benefit from the creation of pooled central database of information relating to tenants that have a history of rent collection problems with other local landlords. Such a register of 'bad tenants' would be simple enough to set up in theory (if residential  landlords were willing to share information about tenants that attracted rent repayment problems) however data protection legislation prevents the simplest methods of compiling such a register from the off set. Alternative strategies are being considered by the Rent Management Service team however and further articles and discussion points will be shared with our readers shortly. Any comments and suggestions would be welcome also.