ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITY OF THE RENTAL AGENT ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITY OF THE RENTAL AGENT

If a property is purchased for the purpose of keeping it tenanted, maybe as a subsidy to an income or as a future retirement plan, it is important to ensure that the asset is taken care of in the best possible way.  This would be done by placing the best-suited tenant in the unit as well as maintaining the property regularly, says Sunell Afrika, rentals manager for property company SAProperty.com. 

There are many aspects of renting out property that the DIY landlord might not have anticipated and the work involved in ensuring the rental process runs smoothly is sometimes underestimated by many laymen.  It is probably always best to enlist the services of an experienced and qualified rental agent to ensure that the whole process runs smoothly, says Afrika.

The vetting of tenants can be time consuming and so can maintaining the property. A rental agent will make sure the right tenant is chosen as well as check on the landlord’s property frequently. Any work that needs to be carried out can then be arranged by the agent and all the landlord needs to do is approve of certain expenditure.

The rental agent’s level of involvement can be determined by the landlord, according to the mandate signed. The landlord can choose whether he wants the rental agent to handle everything, i.e. the tenant vetting, rental collection, inspections, maintenance checks and managing of contractors when things need to be done. The landlord can also choose only to have the tenant placed and rent collected each month by the agent, then take care of the rest himself.

What is important here, she says, is that everyone knows what the mandate says in terms of services and the tenant should know who to contact if something breaks or goes wrong.

The rental agent’s job is to find a suitable tenant for the property, which will include vetting the references and credit profile of the prospective tenant. While he is working on the landlord’s behalf, he should, however, give the tenant all information relating to the property that the tenant should need. If there are certain rules of the complex, for instance, or if there is a particular aspect of the property that he should know about, such as a lack of parking or crime in the area then the rental agent should disclose this to the prospective tenant.

When landlords are in the process of choosing an agent to manage their property they must ask whether he has a Fidelity Fund Certificate, as all agents dealing with property in South Africa need to have this in order to operate legally. 

The landlord should also check whether the agent has access to all the necessary systems such as credit bureau information, a property management system, the necessary training and should ask how many years’ experience the agent has.

“This is a large investment being handed over to someone to manage, and the choice of rental agent must be done with care,” says Afrika.