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Buy To Let
BIM
Buy To Let Application
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1. Buy To Let Application:
1. A very large number of buy-to-let landlords exist that have no access to IT application services to help them run their business.
2. With reference to the OpenRent web service, the following facilities are needed:
  (1) Rental property advertising on Zoopla and RightMove - subcontracted.
  (2) Tenancy Agreement
  (3) Tenant Reference: credit check, prior landlord check, employer check
  (4) Right to Rent - legal obligations
  (5) Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) - subcontracted.
  (6) Electric Safety Certificate and Annual Maintenance Agreement
  (7) Gas Safety Certificate and Annual Maintenance Agreement - subcontracted.
  (8) Floor Plans with sizes - subcontracted.
  (9) Video guide - subcontracted.
  (10) Photographic evidence of fittings and furnishings both inside and outside.
  (11) Inventory - subcontracted.
  (12) Rent Insurance - subcontracted.
  (13) Building Insurance - subcontracted.
  (14) Content Insurance - subcontracted.
  (15) Deposit Registration and hold in escrow - subcontracted.
  (16) Rent Collection - subcontracted.
3. With reference to the BIM web service, the following diary facilities are needed:
  (1) Rent Statement of amounts due, amounts paid and amounts outstanding - tenant may view online.
  (2) Evidence of every communication event by phone, text, email, face-to-face.
  (3) Photographic evidence of every event and trip.
  (4) Travel and subsistence expense.
  (5) Maintenance expense.
  (6) Insurance expense.
  (7) Administrative expense.
  (8) Annual return to HMRC with tax due: April to March each year with HMRC return the following December.

2. Subcontracted
1. It is of note that OpenRent provide many application services that involve some task being subcontracted to another party as a commissioned source of revenue.
2. It is of note that OpenRent do not provide any accounting or financial advice or facilities - automated with a trivial cost.
3. A large number of UK regulations govern how a landlord should run their property business - these regulations are new and can be expected to evolve furthur as cases are tested in court.
4. Even the most experienced landlords are now faced with a very different set of regulations that they may not figure out until after they get a large tax bill in the following year - too late to make the required adjustments.
5. Every landlord may be thought of as running their own domestic house maintenance company - they must be able to subcontract maintenance jobs to trusted people with a fair charge.   This may be the landlord assigning maintenance jobs to themselves for a price that is commercially fair and reasonable - taxed income from the maintenance company may less than taxed income from the property company.
6. The landlord has a duty to maintain the property in good condition and part of that duty is to maintain adequate evidence of all maintenance jobs undertaken - it is the data that is used in court.

3. Data Protection
1. The tenant provides a lot of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) that must be protected with an encrypted application service in compliance with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).
2. The tenant has the right to view their PII at any time and has the right to correct errors, the right to download a copy and the right to delete their information as a means to terminate the tenancy agreement.
3. The tenant has the right to expect regular updates by email, text or other methods as chosen by the tenant.
4. When the tenant can view the inventory and the photographic evidence, then the possibility of damage is reduced.
5. The majority of rental payment complaints are founded on insufficient information being shared between all parties.

4. How does it work
1. Diary of tasks (data entry form).
2. Task may be a purchase or expense as a maintenance cost - inclusive of VAT because the property business is NOT VAT registered.
3. Task may be evidence as a document with uploaded photo - every photo is documented with location, date, time and author.
4. Task may be a rental income - regular recurring tasks by the week or month.
5. Automatic Reports (click a button).
6. Task types are the foundation of every report without any further manual work.
7. Reports may be printed or/and emailed to approved people.
8. Summary:
  (1) Task: rental income.
  (2) Task: evidence with uploaded file.
  (3) Task: purchase with optional receipt.
  (4) Report: annual report, monthly information, rental statement, insurance statement, maintenance statement.
9. While the number of steps and type of evidence that must be managed is significant, the application is very simple and easy to use because all kinds of evidence and purchases have very similar recording requirements.

4. Rental Account Statement (report)
1. For any selected period, the list of rental income payments paid, due and balance is shown.   A deposit is a kind of rental income to be shown in the annual return.
2. Period is weekly, monthly and annual (April to March).
3. The tenant is provided with a link to this statement that they may view (read only) at any time.

5. Evidence (diary)
1. An evidence event task is added to the diary with uploaded evidence as a PNG photo or PDF file.
2. EPC, gas and electricity safety certificates are evidence event tasks, place, date, time and author are automatically recorded.
3. Floor plans are saved as a PDF and uploaded to an evidence task - evidence is read-only and cannot be changed.
4. Right to rent involves photographs of certain documents that are uploaded as evidence.
5. Tenancy agreement and tenant checks are evidence that are uploaded and shared with the tenant.

6. Purchase (diary)
1. A purchase expense task is added to the diary with optional uploaded evidence.
2. All kinds of insurance is a purchase to be included in the annual return.
2. All kinds of maintenance (including VAT) is a purchase to be included in the annual return.
2. Travel, expenses and administrative costs are a purchase to be included in the annual return.

R. Rules
1. Watch what all competitors do.
2. The majority of competitors never make a profit so be very careful who you copy - only copy the very best who have proven to be profitable.
3. Use an online application to disrupt what competitors are doing by doing the same thing for a lower cost and making the customer and supplier do most of the work.   Very high levels of automation means lower costs.
4. Disrupt the disrupters with a better application, improved information flows and more partnerships.   Your biggest competitor may be your best partnership.
5. Cost is just one of three buying factors - people judge value for money in terms of (1) Cost, (2) Time and (3) Quality.   Time means rapid deployment and easy-to-learn. Quality means no errors-of-omission, no defects and nothing can be lost.

Document Control.
1. Document Title: Buy To Let Application.
2. Description: Buy To Let Application, policies and guidelines.
3. Keywords: Buy To Let Application, policies and guidelines.
4. Privacy: Shared with approved people for the benefit of humanity. This is not financial or legal advice.
5. Edition: 1.4.
6. Issued: 14 May 2019.