Landlords REnting process

Prospective Tenant Viewings

Once our extensive marketing has begun for your property we will begin to generate immediate quality leads and you can expect our negotiators to be in regular contact with you to arrange client viewings. It is important that you make yourself easily contactable and available to grant access to the property. If you are very busy it may be a good idea to trust the keys to the property with someone you know as your main contact person for viewings like a neighbour or handyman or better still – register a spare set of keys with our office as viewings would often need to be arranged on short notice and you may lose out on a good tenant!

The Offer

Once a client makes an offer on your property we will contact you immediately and most likely arrange a second viewing to allow you to meet the prospective tenant properly especially of you may not have been available to meet the tenant in person during the first viewing. We will guide you to determine whether the offer is in line with current market trends. Upon acceptance of an offer, we will then take a one-month holding deposit from the potential tenant and schedule a meeting for the signing of the lease agreement.

The Lease Signing

We usually set up a meeting for the signing of the lease at our comfortable offices. A private meeting room will be set up for this purpose where you will be introduced to the tenant. Our letting expert will draw up the lease agreement with all mandatory provisions and fill in the relevant details of the landlord and tenant. In Malta, residential lease agreements are freely negotiated between landlord and tenant and usually quite straightforward. The nature of the lease is purely contractual and takes the form of a private writing. The terms and conditions are left at the discretion of you (the landlord) and the tenant to agree upon however our letting consultant will be on hand to give professional advice on what is standard practice on each matter that may arise. After the lease signing the tenant would then be required to pay the first rent and deposit if this would not have already been paid as a holding deposit in the previous stage and you will be required to pay your share our Real Estate fees being equivalent to half a month’s rent plus VAT (18%) against which we will issue a VAT receipt. Finally, it is time to move on to the final stage!

The Hand Over

Once all paperwork is completed, you would be required to hand over 2 full sets of keys to the tenant and the tenancy starts. We arrange a full inventory check to be carried out usually in the presence of one of our representatives. One full set of keys is usually retained by you – the landlord in case of an emergency and we will also take the water and electricity meter readings to be filled in the relevant section of our standard lease agreement. It is advisable to download a request for an “up to date bill” immediately from the Enemalta Forms section of the water and electricity services corporation website.

Once an application for an up to date bill is submitted then you will be able to clear all pending utility bills up to the commencement date of the lease and all future bills will be conveniently issued from the date of commencement onwards for you to be able to forward these to the tenant who is required by the lease agreement to settle payment without delay. When the lease is signed for a very long duration then some landlords also opt to submit a “change of use form” to the water and electricity corporation in order to change the billing name to that of the tenant in which case the tenant will receive bills directly in his/her name and is required to settle bills directly with the corporation.