Mental health support .... all part of the day job for a letting agent

Latest instalment of The Key Place's regular blog 'Confessions of a  . . . Letting Agent'

Landlords often ask us what goes on behind the scenes at The Key Place and so we thought we would share our experiences, and what we have learned from those experiences, with you.

I have working in lettings for many years and can categorically state that in this job there are no 2 days the same.  I look back and think there are many times when I or my staff could have taken the easy option and been less helpful to our tenants, however often taking the roundabout route results in a more positive outcome for our landlords.  Here is one such example.

We had a lovely Italian tenant, Luigi, who was a long term tenant in a flat in the south side of Edinburgh.  He was the sort of tenant all letting agents and landlords want – a professional who worked in IT, paid his rent in full 6 months in advance, kept the flat clean and tidy, was never a bother.  I used to put extra time in my diary to do inspections at Luigi’s flat as he always made me a strong Italian coffee and we would sit and put the world to rights for a while.

After being a tenant for years Luigi became very paranoid.  Whether it was stress related, a mental health issue or down to too much strong Italian coffee, I will never know.  However as a result of the paranoia Luigi requested the locks be changed on his front door.  He wanted an additional lock fitted, so that he would have a Yale, a Chubb and a new extra Chubb lock.  His logic for this was that when tradesmen visited the flat, only the new Chubb would be locked – they would therefore only be given this key, and not the other 2.  Luigi was very anxious that we meet this demand and was really quite insistent.

Although a strange request, we agreed.  Thinking about Luigi as a tenant, we decided we wanted to keep him.  Often it is better to make a small compromise to keep a good long term tenant than to refuse help and risk losing them.

Sadly Luigi has left now and gone back to Italy to be with his family.  We miss him as a tenant and wish him well, although I do hope he is staying away from the Italian coffee!

For information about the services we offer, please visit our website www.thekeyplace.co.uk

www.thekeyplace.co.uk

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