Lay My Hat

Hello lovely holiday let owners!

My husband and I are in the process of purchasing a cottage in Somerset which we will be letting out as a holiday let (it has already been operating as such for the past 2 years - cozy 3 bedroom cottage and the owners say it earns >£20k/year).

As well as providing some income from our savings, we are hoping the holiday cottage will be a countryside haven for us to the enjoy when it's not booked by guests.

My question is: do other people on this forum also stay in their own holiday let accommodation and does it work? ie can you actually enjoy the property or does it feel weird/annoying sharing your haven with other people?

I guess I am worried about being upset by guests not respecting our space and/or damaging things, meaning that when we go to stay we spend the whole time preoccupied with that instead of just enjoying ourselves.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts and wisdom

Hi there, we invariably passed two or three weeks a year in our French villa; in spring we went to make sure it was ready for the summer season and in the autumn we went to "put it to bed" for the winter (very seasonal, southern France). But we also ensured we had a peak-season week in July to enjoy it as it was meant to be enjoyed! Although the thought of that lovely missed income did nag, I must admit, we could have stayed in a very nice hotel for that money. But it wouldn’t have been the same.

I can't say we had any personal issues with sharing our place with others, although inevitably you notice things they've done and what they've screwed up, that's natural, but we knew that it was par for the course.

If our experience is anything to go by, you won't have much of a rest however - there's always something to be done or improved or added, but I guarantee you won't be bored.

Enjoy it, that's what it's for. Bonne chance!

Mols

Hello,

We do stay in our holiday home pretty frequently. Not always for pleasure as we find it’s good to check up on things and do any repairs or “extra” cleaning, plus it's good to be there if you have booked plumbers, oven cleaners, chimney sweep visits etc.

It’s true that you will find annoyances - things put in “silly”places, stains on tables and chairs etc - and it’s a pain having to always leave the place with clean bedding and all personal items locked away - but you need to accept these negatives unless they outweigh the plus side, the income.

As for having a relaxing time, we find we can do that if we stay in our cottage for a reasonable number of days, but, if it’s just a couple of days, then the amount of cleaning / mending tends to be disproportionate to the amount of relaxing!

Yes - we do.

You spot an awful lot of niggles that way. I can always tell if we stay in a place where the owner has never stayed a night. Mirrors in the wrong place, uncomfortable beds, missing equipment etc.

As others have said - it's very much a busman's holiday. There is always something that you want or need to do.

Yes it’s a good idea, when we started we also offered half price stays to acquaintances provided they did a very critical snagging list - ours were new conversions in a barn, so “untested”.

When you say the owners claim the property earns >£20k pa I’m assuming that’s revenue and not income? As a very rough rule of thumb, the running costs (not including mortgage) on a typical holiday let can account for approximately half the revenue figure; more if you use an agency. Just something to keep in mind, although I’m sure you’re going in with eyes wide open - or you wouldn’t be on this forum!

Thank you so much for all your replies

The whole thing feels a whole lot less scary knowing there are friendly and experienced people to offer words of advice! Thank you for taking the time to share your experiences, and that all makes sense and is very reassuring. I'm looking forward to giving back to others on this forum, once we have something useful to share from our own experience!

Thanks for the heads up greenbarn. Yes exactly - the total revenue is c £24k per annum and we anticipate running costs of £12k. Good to know 50% is normal!

So many more questions, so I'm sure I'll be posting on here again soon! Thanks again, and Happy New Year!!

Do you live close to the property?

We have a pair of barn conversions in West Dorset and still stay quite often. I think it is very important that you stay regularly (we manage the properties remotely) to ensure that standards are maintained.

We still enjoy staying as it is a relaxing location but there is always some maintenance required. We visit at least once per month and do the jobs no cleaner seems to be interested in doing. That means cleaning the ovens, moving all furniture to clean behind it, touching up paintwork etc.

We don't use a agent so manage it ourselves with a local cleaner. We have been very lucky to find a friendly neighbour who also keeps an eye on the place.

As you will read here it is tough to keep occupancy up, we do pretty well but use many channels to do so.

I wish you good luck, it can be very rewarding

We're off site and stay in both our cottages regularly. That's partly because we originally bought them so we'd have somewhere to stay when visiting family. But we've also found it invaluable for maintenance. We notice things we just wouldn't pick up on a passing visit. We also know all the little quirks like what happens when the TV suddenly decides it needs re-tuning or there's been a power cut and the oven won't start until you reset the clock. Even if you live next door I'd recommend staying in your let from time to time - as they say 'walk in the shoes of your guests'.

If you stay in your holiday let for your own pleasure/holiday you are supposed to declare it on your tax return. On the other hand, if you visit the property to carry out maintenance you can put it down as an expense.

Yes you have to declare the days used yourself as that percentage of the running costs are not tax deductible.

We are remote managers so often have to stay when we are doing maintenance so need to track these and include them. We can of course claim the use of the car.

We visit often and use the cottage as a daily base but don't stay overnight. We found the bed-changing and washing wasn't worth it when we only live 30 minutes away

Our Gite is next door to our house. Thanks to Engie Home Services incompetency we’ve had to rely on the Gite for hot water and showers. After 13 weeks we’ve got to know it quite well.

The downside is we haven’t been able to rent the Gite despite requests. Compensation claim going into Engie next week. Engie had to sub contract another company to get it working!

We used to stay regularly when we lived in London. Now, we live in a small chalet next to the big one and swap into it (usually) in spring and autumn. Agree with everything that's been said about spending a lot of time fixing things, but also agree that you definitely notice what should be changed and it shows in the experience of the guests too, when things are well thought out.

We have a lockable cupboard for personal stuff, and made sure that everything in the chalet was robust and good quality, the kind of things that can take some hammer and still look good. Chunky wood tables, simple and replaceable crockery, etc. We spent money on quality short solid wine glasses (La Rochere) and old fashioned tumblers (Duralex Picardie) as we got sick of buying 50 of each every season. Very rarely have breakages now. We also treated ourselves to Le Creuset earthenware mugs and these last well too. And good cutlery - but get lots of inexpensive teaspoons!
And a note that if you have more than one bedroom, be sure to sleep in them all