What does a property manager actually do?

What the 10% management fee covers

Full management with Livdin is 10% of the monthly rent plus VAT for a single let (HMOs are 12% plus VAT), and it buys the whole job, not a slice of it: rent collection and arrears, inspections, maintenance triage, compliance renewals, all tenant contact and a monthly statement. The full schedule is public on our fees page, maintenance is billed at contractor cost with no markup, and there are no hidden charges. What you are really paying for is distance: the property earns, and the phone calls go to someone else.

A month in the life of a managed property

A normal month runs to a rhythm. Here it is, roughly in order:

1. Rent in. Payments are collected and reconciled at the start of the tenancy month. Anything missing is flagged straight away, not discovered at month end.
2. Arrears chased. A late payment gets a reminder, then a call, then the formal process if it comes to that. Most never get past the reminder.
3. Maintenance triaged. Tenant reports come in through the month. Each one is sorted into urgent, routine or tenant responsibility, and the right contractor is sent, not the nearest one.
4. Compliance checked. Certificate dates are reviewed and any renewal falling due is booked before it expires, not after.
5. Inspections done. Any visit due that month happens, with photographs and a written record, and anything found feeds straight back into the maintenance list.
6. Statement out. At month end you get a statement showing rent received, any invoices paid and the amount transferred to you.

The best month is a boring one: rent in, nothing leaking, statement sent.

Maintenance triage, not just forwarding problems

Triage means judging each report before spending your money. Is it urgent, is it routine, is it actually the tenant’s job? A leak gets someone out fast. A sticking door waits for a planned visit. A blown bulb goes back to the tenant with a polite explanation. Contractor invoices come to you at cost, with nothing added on top, and significant spend is agreed with you before work starts. Day-to-day fixes just get done, because a small repair handled this week is cheaper than a big one next month.

Compliance renewals you never have to diary

Your manager tracks every statutory certificate and renews it before it lapses. In England that means an annual gas safety check on any property with gas appliances, an electrical safety report (EICR) at least every five years, and a valid EPC before the property is marketed. Tenancy deposits must be protected in a government-approved scheme within 30 days of receipt; on managed properties we register them with the DPS. These rules change, so we confirm the current requirements on every property we manage rather than assuming last year’s answer still holds. Our property management service covers all of this as standard.

Tenant communication and your statement

Tenants call us, not you. Queries, notices, renewals and the awkward conversations all land with a named person who knows the property, and long relationships are the result: our average tenancy runs 24 months. On your side, the owner portal is available 24/7, so you can see documents, statements and activity whenever you like, and the monthly statement sets out exactly what came in, what was spent and why.

What a property manager does not do

A manager does not take the property off your hands, and should not pretend to. You still decide on significant spend, rent levels and whether a tenancy continues. No agent can promise zero empty periods either; between tenancies we work to a 7-day void target from checkout to move-in, and we tell you honestly when a property needs work to hit it. If you live close by, have spare time and enjoy the detail, self-managing is a perfectly reasonable choice; our guide to full management versus tenant find sets out the trade-offs fairly. And if you are with an agent who does less than the list above, switching takes about a month and costs nothing.