Finding your tenant

Always make sure you have a valid Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) before you market your property.

You should be brief and accurate when advertising a property. You should consider who you want to rent your property to (your target market) as this will help you decide where to advertise. Options include magazines such as The List, newspaper property pages, ESPC, university notice boards, and local shops or supermarkets. You may also decide to advertise online.

You must make sure that no person or group is treated less favourably than any other because of their race, colour, ethnic or national origin, sex, disability or sexual orientation.

Showing the property

Remember that you don't know who you're going to meet, so for your safety always let another person know when you are meeting someone to view your property. Let them know what time you are meeting and when you should be back. Take a mobile phone with you and if possible consider carrying a personal attack alarm.

You may find a tenant wants to sign the tenancy agreement without viewing the property. This is not advisable as the Distance Selling Regulations may apply. This can mean that if a tenant signs a tenancy agreement without having first visited the property, they have a legal right to seven working days cooling-off period from signing the lease - during which time they can withdraw from the agreement. However sometimes this is unavoidable. For example, the prospective tenant may be abroad.

Getting references

Where possible you should take up references from previous landlords.

The sort of information you should check is:

• length of previous tenancies
• late rent or arrears
• details of any antisocial behaviour
• condition of the property after the tenancy.

You may also want to carry out a credit check and there are businesses that specialise in providing a tenancy referencing and credit check service for private landlords.