We offer a variety of different service packages, including fully managed, rent collection and contract-holder find options, all of which are priced differently. Our charges are open to negotiation, and we’re happy to tailor our services to suit your needs.

This is a question we’re asked regularly, so we’ve created a property management page that shows what each service includes.

Nope. It’s only when we find you contract-holders that you have to pay – or, in other words, you pay us after our marketing has been successful! We’ll market your property on our website, nationwide property portals, in our company magazine and in traditional window displays in our branches with no hidden costs.

One of our staff from the CPS Homes office will accompany all viewings arranged through us and they’ll occur during weekday office hours and on Saturdays. If you’d like to be present for any of them, just let us know.

As well as running credit checks, we ask for current employer references and previous landlord references for all of our professional contract-holders. Our student contract-holders need to secure a financial guarantor who must be a UK homeowner over the age of 25 and who agrees to pay any shortfall in the student’s rent.

If a guarantor cannot be found, such as in the case of international students, and only if the landlord agrees, we will accept a number of months’ rent in advance in lieu of the guarantor form as an indication of financial security for the landlord. Some of our landlords ask for three months’ rent in advance, some ask for six – it’s something that we will agree between you and your potential contract-holders before the signing of the occupation contract.

For our managed and rent collection clients, you will receive the rent between the 10th and 15th of every month. For our contract-holder-find service, we aim to have the monies with you within 10 working days often before the contract-holder moves into the property. The contract-holders will then pay the rent to you directly.

A contract-holder’s deposit is typically a little bit more than one month’s rent on the property and is payable by them upon the signing of the occupation contract. The deposit will then be registered with a tenancy deposit protection scheme within 30 days.

For our managed properties, we register our deposits with the Deposit Protection Service, resulting in a faster and more efficient deposit release process at the end of the tenancy.

All deposits being paid by a contract-holder for an Assured Shorthold Tenancy must be registered with a recognised deposit protection scheme within 30 days of its payment. The contract-holders have an incentive to treat your property well to ensure that they get their money back, and if there is contract-holder damage at the end of the contract, you’ll be able to apply to the protection scheme for funds to cover any repairs. The protection schemes are designed to guarantee that any deposit disputes will be dealt with efficiently, with a neutral third party available to make the decision on what’s fairest for both sides.

'EPC' stands for 'Energy Performance Certificate', which measures the energy efficiency of a property using a scale of A-G. An EPC is valid for 10 years, and it is a legal requirement for landlords to have a valid EPC before their property is let. If you haven’t got one, don’t worry! We can check whether your property has one, and arrange an EPC assessment for you if you don’t.

We’ll only deal with maintenance-related issues as part of our fully managed service, and you can have as much or as little involvement as you want. It’s up to you if you want to carry out all the work yourself or you want us to contact you with every maintenance issues reported to us. Unless otherwise specified by you, or an emergency situation that could put your property or contract-holder at risk, all maintenance work awaits your authorisation.

We don’t spend your money without your consent, but if you’d like us to proceed with maintenance work up to a certain price without contacting you every time, we’re happy to proceed within the budget you've set us. We’re able to instruct our own in-house contractors, or, if you have preferred trades of your own, we’re happy to get in touch with them too.

'HMO' stands for 'Houses in Multiple Occupation' and relates to properties let to a group of unrelated adult contract-holders. Most people think of groups of students, but houses that have been converted into flats can also require HMO licences. Licensing laws vary around the country – the Cathays area of Cardiff, for example, has additional regulations that landlords must meet in order to be able to let their properties. An HMO licence is granted when the property complies with the local authority’s housing standards and is held by the owner of the property. It is a fineable offence to let a property without an HMO licence where the licensing laws apply.