Landlord Onboarding Guide

This brief guide shows how we’ll get you and your property onboarded.

We like to give you this birds-eye view of the whole process, so you’re never left thinking “when will this happen?” or “when will I be sent that?”.

In the background, we have a 29-step process to getting you onboarded but what you see on this page is the basics of what you need to know. It gives you an idea of what to expect as you become part of the Portus Family.

Thanks again for your valued business – we’re all looking forward to working with you!

First of all we need some basic information about you and your property.

1. Complete our Landlord Onboarding Form
2. Email us a copy of your ID (passport or driving license) and Proof of Ownership (Title Register or Mortgage Letter).
3. If you have any compliance Certificates for the property please send them over as well

Once we have your information, our Terms of Business will be sent to you for e-signing. The email will come to you from ‘Adobe’ and you can easily sign the document on either your computer or smartphone.

We can start managing and advertising your property when this is signed but not before.

Now that you’re all signed up we can get you and your property added to all of our systems. The main ones that we use are:

• Arthur Online – for managing tenancies
• PayProp – for managing payments
• FixFlo – to manage maintenance

Read our Landlord Systems Guide for more information on these.

We appreciate that the handover process can be stressful for Landlords and so we will take the lead on this and just update you as things progress.

For properties coming from another letting agent, we have a templated email that will be sent to them requesting everything we need to aid in a smooth handover. This includes all certificates, tenant details, deposit transfers, rent statements and more.

If there is no current agent then we will work with you to gather any information that we need to start managing.

If there are any existing tenants when we start managing the property we will write to them to introduce ourselves.

The same email will also:

• Serve Section 48 Notices (legal notice for change of agent)
• Give them our bank details to start paying rent to
• Give our contact details for future reference.

We would also arrange an inspection of the property at this point if we have not yet been in there.

If your property is not fully occupied we can progress with a rent appraisal and advertising.

We have different approaches for different properties and are always happy to discuss a marketing strategy with you.

• Single-let properties are advertised on Rightmove and Zoopla
• Professional HMOs are advertised on SpareRoom
• Student HMOs are advertised on Rightmove and Zoopla

Optional extras include:

• 3D click-through tours
• Professional photography
• Property dressing

We collect rent from all tenants on the 1st of every month. Sometimes we inherit tenancies from other agents with different payment dates, which we will adhere to, but the vast majority pay on the 1st.

Single-Let Properties: rent paid out to you on the 15th of each month

HMO Properties: rent paid to you on the last working day of each month

Payment Advice

You will receive a ‘Payment Advice’ pdf by email when:

• We pay rent to you
• We pay a contractor from the float account

This is not your monthly statement and please do not treat it as such because it does not detail all incoming rent.

Monthly Statement

Your monthly statement is sent to you on the 1st of every month for the month prior. For example, July’s statement is sent on 1st August.

This will show all of your income and outgoings.

FAQ

Q: Tenant ‘John Smith’ is not shown on the Payment Advice pdf. Why hasn’t he paid?

A: If the whole of a tenant’s rent has been used up on contractor payments or fees then 0% of their rent is paid to you and therefore they won’t show up on the Payment Advice pdf. This does not mean he has not paid, just that none of his rent has been paid to you, the Landlord.

For a full breakdown of income and outgoings, ignore your Payment Advice pdf and review your Monthly Statement instead.

One of the ways we keep your costs down is by using smaller maintenance contractors with lower overheads. The trade-off is that they usually want quick payment rather than waiting 30-days.

To facilitate this we hold a Float Account for each property that ranges from £200-500.

PayProp refers to this as the ‘Property Account’, so if you see on your statement an outbound payment going to the ‘Property Account’, this is reimbursement to the float from the rent to bring the level back up to par.

Send all general enquiries to hello@portuslets.co.uk or you can call us on 0151 329 3538.

We like to be approachable and so you may have spoken to one of the team via text or WhatsApp. Please keep any direct message comms like these within office hours – unless it’s urgent.

Pop in for a brew! Our office hours are:

09:00 – 17:30 – Monday to Friday

Office Closed – Saturday and Sunday

Hopefully, your onboarding process has gone smoothly. If you have any specific feedback, we’d love to hear it.

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