Lay My Hat

Have you thought about biting the bullet and going with Cottages.com? They do full dynamic pricing that you can control the upper and lower limits for. 21% commission incl.VAT but to be honest, it's worth it for me. I get bookings from their core sites, plus Booking.com, AirBnB and loads of other pl...

This came to Scotland last year. I was initially quite annoyed by it, but actually the process was pretty painless and 99.9% of FHL's were approved within six months. The people having issues are the Air BnB party flat type places with anti-social behaviour, etc. Everyone else has carried on normal ...

Certainly for the UK, I've had this exact issue. I got quite a shock one month with the bill! I'm waiting on an Ohme install, £899 from Octopus without the cable (every car will have their own). I take the £100 deposit for Good Housekeeping and deduct from that anything used from the charger. I have...

Hi Sarah. A bit late to the party, but I ditched E7 altogether and installed EHC DSR Radiators (Electric Heating Company) and I'm on the Octopus Go tariff for electricity only. The Octopus Go gives 5ppkwh between 0030-0430hrs and is designed for EV charging, but it works for me as I have a hot tub r...

Hi folks. If you own an FHL and live in Scotland, hopefully you're aware of the moves by the Scottish Government to churn some money out of FHLs under the guise of tightening controls. I have no issues with a license to operate, price depending, but I do have issues with the idea that a guest on hol...

This is why you take before and after pictures. After every clean, I have pictures taken of key areas (floors, doors, curtains, expensive items) and that's my proof in the event of damage. In your scenario, I'd have kept the deposit, presented both picture sets, and made it clear I'd be looking for ...

There has been a lot of stuff about this, and it varies from sensible to downright insane. Cottages at one point were asking for everything to be stripped out that was non-essential, before backpedalling on that. My property team have all taken an infection control course and the measures we have in...

It's worth remembering that Cottages also list your property on AirBnb / Booking.com and hundreds of other portals as well. I moved from my local agent who was giving me 87% occupancy each year to Cottages.com for a variety of reasons, booking occupancy (believe it or not) not being one of them. Wh...

This is why I like Cottages means of not paying any monies owed by guests to me, until the month of their booking. That way, I have no backlog, so to speak, of owner deposits. The £25 booking is mine regardless. From Covid-19, because of when it fell I only had one fully paid booking which was cance...

My solution to this has been fairly straight forward. I'm now taking an additional deposit to the value of 80% of the booking minus commission rates, built in cleaning costs, etc. So they pay for the booking and pay this 80% deposit on top. The rationale behind it is: "If you, or any member of ...

I think one thing I've learned is, look around and see if you have a local agent covering your area. It may not be that obvious. The one I found when I started out covered my very specific area and from the get-go, generated 87% occupancy for me for two years running before I left. I realistically c...

We are in our second year now. In our first we had 60 nights booked (started july). This calendar year we have 100 nights booked. I understand that (UK), we need to have a min of 104 nights to qualify for HMRC rules on holiday lets. Does anyone else have this problem and should I do (almost) anythi...

It's worth remembering that Cottages also list your property on AirBnb / Booking.com and hundreds of other portals as well. I moved from my local agent who was giving me 87% occupancy each year to Cottages.com for a variety of reasons, booking occupancy (believe it or not) not being one of them. Whi...

Take the money every time - grass isn't always greener.

I charge £300 deposit for the booking which then rolls over to become the breakage deposit. I'm with Martha - it's in my T&C's that the house should be kept to a level of cleanliness and hygiene that a reasonable person would expect and that if extra cleaning is required above and beyond what wo...