Lay My Hat

I agree with you regarding LMH, it is a great site and a boon for holiday home owners. It has benefitted me over the years with help and advice from other owners. However it has unfortunately gone 'downhill' this past year or so. In my opinion one of the reasons why it has lost it's appeal is there ...

From my experience of damp problems after renovating our 2 properties, one an old stone built house the other a more modern brick-built bungalow. The obvious one is to find out where the damp is coming from. Our bungalow's damp problem was caused by a leaking roof (not always noticeable), tenants dr...

Hi newtimber, If you click on this it contains 'guidance to making your small paying guest accommodation safe from fire'. Within the guidance there is a fire safety risk assessment template. I used this. You may find it useful. Regards. www.gov.uk/government/publications/making-your-small-paying-gue...

Having read through the ' Guidance. Making your small paying guest accommodation safe from fire' , my main shortcomings are not having smoke alarms in the bedrooms, lounge and no heat alarm in the kitchen. No emergency escape lighting and also having to replace the bedroom doors with fire compliance...

I have sent you a P.M.

Guests could use our domestic electric supply to charge their cars and I have no physical way of stopping them. However we do meet and greet all of our guests, those with electric cars I verbally inform them that they must not use our domestic electricity supply to charge their vehicles. Also this i...

We have had an electric car charger installed at our holiday let for the intended use of guests. To activate it a RFIC card (credit card size) has to be swiped over the charger and charging can then begin. The card can be issued to guests during their stay and you can charge your guests a fee for th...

We were with Independent Cottages for 6 years, they generated a lot of business for us and were sorry when they sold out to Snaptrip. After the take-over we decided to leave Independent Cottages last year because amongst other things we were suspicious commission would be introduced despite Snaptrip...

This is an interesting point re the invalidation of insurance for use of either ordinary domestic power points or EV charging points at holiday lets. Does anyone have a bit of wording to cover this in their terms and conditions that they’d be willing for me to copy/use? I have sent you a PM.

I agree with the comments from Newtimber and others about 'spying' on guests. We live a few hundred yards from our holiday let and apart from putting the dustbins out for collection I make a conscious effort to avoid walking past the holiday let when we have guests, so that we are not seeing to be c...

Looking back on the previous years we have been in the holiday let business we have never had much custom during these 4 months (November, December, January and February) except over the Christmas/new year period, even then it has only been for a few days. During the remaining 8 months of the year w...

From my experience of letting property on a short term let, it is fraught with problems. The biggest one being what kind of a tenant you will have. There is no guarantee they will respect your property and could well damage it during their tenancy (this happened to us), leaving you with repairs cost...

We have also been pondering what prices to set for 2023 and have not yet come to a clear-cut answer. There have been lurid headlines today that households may have to pay energy costs £500.00 per month this coming winter. One thing we have done that will to an extent partially solve the problem of w...

Holiday lets in England have been receiving adverse reports in the press recently, with locations such as Cornwall, Whitby, The Lake District being identified as places where locals cannot afford to buy houses in their villages and towns because property is being bought by wealthy outsiders and turn...

My wife and I clean and maintain our holiday let but unlike yours Penman, our let is just a small 2 bedroomed bungalow that sleeps 3. The time spent cleaning it takes us approximately 4 hours to complete, which equates to 8 hours (2 X 4 hours). This does not include the laundry of bedding, towels et...