Life Stay

Life Stay Free Offer for London Landlords in Zones 1 and 2:

- Up to 20% Above Market Rates
- Up to £6k Free Property Makeover
- Zero Agency Fees

02/10/2026

This 6-bed HMO brought in £54,000 last year. The landlord still kept less than his neighbour with a normal flat. 🤯

He’d done everything right on paper: converted the lounge into two extra bedrooms, used an agency at 10%, and kept every room let.

But each time a room was re-let, the rent went down. Meanwhile bills, council tax and fees went up. £4,500 a month coming in, under £4,000 landing in his account.

And under the Renters’ Rights Act, a rent you’ve dropped is a rent you’re stuck with. Raising it again is a formal process, not a quick fix.

Within 10 minutes of walking in, we knew why the rents kept falling: tired furniture, worn carpets, mouldy bathrooms, and doors that weren’t fire compliant. 🚪

So we did the opposite:

✅ New furniture

✅ Full redecoration and new carpets

✅ Compliant fire doors

✅ We organised it all and covered most of the cost, with a small contribution from the landlord

Then we signed him at £4,800 a month, guaranteed, whether the rooms are full or empty.

Lifestay leases the property on a 3–5 year agreement and re-lets the rooms to vetted tenants. Figures vary by property, and yours is modelled on your home.

HMO looks busy but your bank account disagrees? Tap the link in bio and we’ll show you what your property should be paying.

16/09/2026

This landlord knew less about his own property than his neighbours did.

He’d signed what looked like a simple guaranteed rent deal.
Corporate tenants, short term contracts, hands off for him.
Then a letter came from the council.
Turned out his flat had been sublet on short term booking the whole time, something that wasn’t even allowed.
He found out from an enforcement letter, not from his agent.

By the time he got the property back, it needed a full refit and he didn’t have the cash for it.

We covered the furniture and painting ourselves, funded the rest upfront, and he paid his share back over five months. No lump sum up front.

Four weeks later it was fully compliant and on a guaranteed rent agreement that actually holds up. Fixed income every month, and he knows exactly who’s in his property now.

If an agent has ever promised you something
that didn’t survive contact with reality, comment RENT and we’ll show you how guaranteed rent should actually work.

T&Cs apply.

BuyToLetLondon

01/09/2026

A 3 bed in Zone 1 or 2 is not just more rent. It is more void weeks, more repair bills, and more to lose when your agent stops picking up the phone.

The bigger the property, the more one empty month actually costs you. Two voids a year on a larger house can wipe out most of what you thought you were making.

And since the Renters’ Rights Act landed, the informal approach is finished. Section 21 is gone. Every arrears conversation, every payment plan, every inspection now needs to be documented from day one, because if a tenancy turns difficult later you need evidence for all of it.

We take the whole thing off your plate. Guaranteed rent every month for the full term, zero management fees, zero void risk, and a property makeover worth up to £6,000, completely free.

Comment RENT and we will send you your guaranteed rent figure.

T&Cs apply.

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01/09/2026

A 3 bed in Zone 1 or 2 is not just more rent. It is more void weeks, more repair bills, and more to lose when your agent stops picking up the phone.

The bigger the property, the more one empty month actually costs you. Two voids a year on a larger house can wipe out most of what you thought you were making.

And since the Renters’ Rights Act landed, the informal approach is finished. Section 21 is gone. Every arrears conversation, every payment plan, every inspection now needs to be documented from day one, because if a tenancy turns difficult later you need evidence for all of it.

We take the whole thing off your plate. Guaranteed rent every month for the full term, zero management fees, zero void risk, and a property makeover worth up to £6,000, completely free.

Click on the link in bio and we will send you your guaranteed rent figure.

T&Cs apply.

⁣

12/08/2026

We manage HMOs across Zone 1 and 2 on guaranteed rent for the whole property. Fully managed, compliance and licensing included, plus a free makeover worth up to £6,000 to lift your room rates.

Comment RENT or click the link in bio and we will show you what your HMO should really be earning.

T&Cs apply.

⁣

28/05/2026

This is the fee nobody wants to think about, which is exactly why it catches landlords out hardest.

Sometimes, no matter how carefully you screen and manage, you end up needing to remove a tenant. Rent stops. The relationship breaks down. Notice has to be served.

Your agent handles it end to end. Serving the notice. Preparing the paperwork. Sometimes attending court. The documentation alone runs £125 to £300. Court attendance can be upwards of £150 an hour. If the case is contested or adjourned, you are past £1,000 before you have your property back.

And here’s what changed on the first of May 2026. Section 21 is gone. The “no fault” route that let landlords regain possession without giving a reason no longer exists. Every eviction now runs through Section 8, which means proving a specific legal ground, with evidence, in court. Industry figures now put a contested claim as high as £3,000 once you add court fees, solicitor costs, and bailiff enforcement.

The landlords who get hurt most are the ones who managed casually for years. Undocumented payment plans. Verbal agreements. Missing inspection reports. Under Section 21 none of that mattered. Under Section 8 it is the difference between winning and losing.

And that’s the quiet truth across this whole series.
AML checks, void periods, maintenance markups, inventory reports, and now possession. Every one is survivable alone. Stacked together across a year, on a property you manage alone, they are the reason landlords are quietly leaving the market.

That was hidden cost number five, and the end of the series. If you’ve watched all five and you’re doing the maths on your own portfolio, that feeling is the point.

Comment COSTS and we’ll DM you the full hidden fee breakdown from all five videos in one place.
Follow along for more straight talking London property content.

14/05/2026

The management fee on the front of your contract is not the management fee.

Most London full management deals quote 10 to 15% plus VAT. Sounds reasonable.
The number you actually pay across a year almost never matches it.
The maintenance markup is one of the main reasons why.
When your agent coordinates a repair, most contracts let them add a percentage on top of the contractor’s invoice.
Usually 10% plus VAT. Sometimes 15.
It’s there in the small print on page nine.

Here’s how it adds up in real numbers.
A boiler breakdown call out and part replacement in central London sits around £450 to £700.
A roof leak repair often passes £600.
An EICR remedial works job after a failed electrical inspection can easily clear £800.
Each of those is normal.

Each of them is something most Zone 1 and 2 landlords will hit at least once a year.
10% plus VAT on a £700 invoice is £84.
On three to four jobs a year you are quietly handing over another £250 to £350 on top of the management fee you already agreed to.

On a HMO with more bathrooms, more boilers, and more wear, the number is meaningfully higher.
And it’s a fee that goes up when prices go up. Your agent gets a pay rise every time a plumber does.The other thing worth knowing.

The Renters’ Rights Act lands on the first of May 2026 and most high street agents have already announced fee restructures because of it.

The maintenance markup is one of the line items quietly being protected, not removed.

Two questions to ask before you sign anything.
Do you mark up maintenance invoices, and if so by how much?
Can I see contractor invoices directly, or only the marked up version?
If the answer to the second one is no, you are paying a number you cannot audit.

Comment COSTS and we’ll DM you the full hidden fee breakdown from the series.

13/05/2026

The day a tenancy ends is the day the property starts costing you money instead of making it.

Most agents say a “good” London void is two to three weeks. London ran at 28 days between tenancies through 2025, and April 2026 came in around 17. On paper, fine.

The problem is that average hides what’s actually happening.

On a £2,500 a month flat, every empty week is roughly £580 you do not get back.

Add council tax, utility standing charges, service charge, and insurance premiums that quietly tick up the moment the property is unoccupied.

Then the vacant inspections your agent bills for. Then the re-let stack on top, clean, inventory, marketing, referencing, AML.

None of these are scams. They are real things. They just hit you in the same window where you have zero rent coming in.

And here’s the bit nobody is fully pricing in yet. Fixed term tenancies are gone from the first of May 2026.

Every tenancy is now periodic.
Your tenant can serve two months’ notice at any point in the year, for any reason.
Lining up a new tenant for the first of the month gets a lot harder when the leaving date is whenever the current tenant decides.

A 17 day average sounds reassuring until you realise some properties re-let in four days and others sit for two months.

Yours is one of those, not the average.

Comment COSTS and we’ll DM you the full hidden fee breakdown from the series.

10/05/2026

Anti money laundering checks are now a legal requirement on every tenant who moves into your property.

Fair enough. Nobody wants dirty money flowing through London rentals.

The part most landlords don’t know is who actually ends up paying for the check.

It’s £10 to £25 plus VAT per person. On a single let it looks small. On a four bed HMO it’s four checks. Two move outs and two move ins in a year means eight.

Multiply that across a portfolio and a “small” admin fee turns into a line item you never agreed to.

Your agent has to run the check. That bit isn’t optional. Whether the cost sits with them or quietly lands on your statement is a completely separate question. And in most contracts, it lands on you.

Ask your agent two things before you sign anything. Who pays for AML checks. And how often they get re-run.

Comment COSTS and we’ll DM you the full hidden fee breakdown from the series.

07/05/2026

The 15% on your management contract is the tip of the iceberg.
Most London landlords don’t realise how many costs sit underneath that headline number.
These aren’t fake or scammy fees. They’re real things that need doing. The problem is most landlords only find out about them invoice by invoice, after they’ve already signed.
Over the next five videos we’re breaking each one down. What it is, what it typically costs, and the questions to ask before you commit to anything.
If you manage your own property or you’re already with a high street agent, follow along so you don’t miss the rest.

Comment LIST and we’ll DM you the rundown of the 5 costs that quietly drain landlord profits the most.

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