Is The Living Room's office open?

Yes. The Living Room is currently open to the public since the 12th April 2021. We have 4 members of staff currently working full-time.

Emails and phones are all running as normal during office working hours.

To confirm, our opening times are:

- 9:30am to 5:30pm (Mon to Thu)
- 9:30am to 5pm (Fri)

Outside of office hours, we have 1 emergency mobile line. This line does not ring but, if you have an emergency, leave a voicemail and a team member will get back to you as soon as possible!

If you have maintenance to report, you should always be reporting this (whether emergency or non-emergency) via our online maintenance reporting tool which can be accessed via the following link: https://tlrestates.fixflo.com/Auth/HomeIssueCreate - but please ensure that all reported emergency maintenance is followed up with a voicemail.

Our aim is to keep everyone as updated as possible as times change and further Government guidance is issued, so please keep checking this page, our Facebook page, and your emails for further updates in the coming weeks.

Will The Living Room still be conducting house viewings?

We are being strongly advised by the Welsh Government to conduct viewings via virtual/online methods in line with government guidance. If it's safe to do so, in-person viewings will be limited to one 'viewer' only and extra precautions may be taken to ensure safety of everyone involved. Social distancing is advised at all times.

We have created many videos of our available properties which we are currently using to advertise our homes/rooms and generate leads. We hope that these will reduce the amount of physical viewings that we need to conduct by ensuring that only people who are serious about taking a property are shown in person.

However, if you live in a property that is still available - or has rooms available - either now or for next academic year, we may be in touch to see if you can help us by recording some video clips of your property for us to use when replying to enquiries.

The idea is to make sure that we're visiting as little as possible even after the lockdown and one visit to create a video now could save multiple in-person viewings in the long run.

Do you offer Video Tours of available properties?

Yes. We've managed to get out to a few of our available properties to take walk-through videos and have begun editing and uploading these video tours to our YouTube channel. We're also linking these to our properties on Zoopla as well.

We are contacting tenants who live at available properties/rooms to see if we can obtain more video clips through them or if we can visit to get some video clips ourselves. We will continue to create videos on empty properties, and will only entertain the idea of visiting occupied properties under strict measures for when we are in the property.

Moving forward, we'll be putting our videos of occupied properties on our YouTube Channel as 'Unlisted' videos. Meaning that the only people that will see them are people who we send the links to - they won't be searchable by the general public.

Can you postpone or reduce your rent?

Unfortunately not. You have a signed tenancy agreement for a fixed amount of rent per month with your landlord. There are a lot of factors that must be considered before a landlord can even begin to contemplate deferring rental payments.

First and foremost, you need to be exhausting all of your options when it comes to claiming any money or welfare that you are entitled to. A good place to start will be the new Tenancy Saver Loan just released on the 7th October 2020. The Government has given those who have been adversely affected by the coronavirus lots of options so please ensure that you've exhausted all of these options before anything else.

If you have exhausted all your options and definitely know that you have no way to pay your rent. Get in contact with us asap to keep us and the landlord in the loop. We may be able to offer you further advice or help.

Is it possible that I will be evicted for not paying my rent?

Yes, it is possible. However, the Welsh Government have put in measures to ensure that no renter who has been financially impacted by the coronavirus can be evicted from their home for at least 6 months (for all notices given after the 24th July 2020). So even if you are struggling with your rent, you have security that you're at least secured in your home for a minimum of 6 months.

It is possible that your notice could be less than 6 months if it's relating to anti-social behaviour.

Have you and your housemates gone to stay with family during the pandemic and left your house empty?

Given the current high tier/level statuses throughout the UK, if you're planning to go and stay with family elsewhere in the country and your property is going to be empty, we'd just like to check that you managed to get your house in order before heading off.

In the grand scheme of things it seems so trivial, but if these things haven't been done it could be worth us sending someone over to your property to tick these things off for you.

• If you think your property will be empty for over 28 days, please let us know! Your landlord's home insurance could be voided if they haven't been notified that the house will be empty for longer than this.
• Have you turned your heating onto a timer for a couple of hours a day? Remember a house with no heating can be susceptible to mould growth! A little bit of heating should help slow this process down. Whatever you do, don't leave your heating on for the whole time or you're going to build up quite a large bill that will need to paid off later!
• Likewise, have you turned off all your electrical appliances where possible? If your property is empty, you want to be using as little electricity as possible. Turn off all lights. You may want to leave the fridge/freezer on if you're leaving groceries in there, but all other appliances can probably be switched off apart from the boiler. The less you leave on, the cheaper your bills when you eventually come back to the house.
• Have you emptied all of your bins and stored them appropriately or taken them to the tip? Piles of bin bags in your front or back garden will start attracting unwanted pests to your property - and potentially council-issued fines.
• Have you cleaned your property and wiped all surfaces? Remember, if rubbish and crumbs are present in your home, rats and mice may force their way in and have a field day in your kitchen. A clean property is, usually, a pest free property.

Showing symptoms, been diagnosed, or currently in self-isolation?

Please let us know! The government's guidance is to get tested if you're showing any symptoms of COVID-19. If you need to self-isolate, it will usually be for between 10-14 days. Please ensure you've downloaded the NHS COVID-19 app. If you've come into contact with other people who have tested positive for the virus, you may be asked to self-isolate yourself.

To read more about the what the Government have to say about self-isolation, click the following link: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation-and-treatment/when-to-self-isolate-and-what-to-do/

If you're currently self-isolating or if you've been diagnosed with the virus, please let us know as soon as possible. This information will affect how we treat you and your property moving forward.

Are you cleaning and disinfecting your house regularly?

Please remember that we all need to be wiping down and disinfecting surfaces regularly and, if you have someone coming to your home for emergency or essential maintenance, they may not want to enter or work in an environment that doesn't look like it's been cleaned/disinfected recently.

Contractor(s) will also have the right to walk away from a job if they're worried about the cleanliness of your home.

What's happening with your included cleaning?

From the 19th December 2020, any cleaning services in our house shares will continue as long as:

• The tenants and contractor are well and are showing no symptoms of COVID-19.
• The tenants are happy for their cleaning to continue.

If your services are postponed for whatever reason, we strongly recommend that you are regularly (a few times every day) disinfecting surfaces, door handles, and other regularly touched surfaces (like bannisters and edges of doors).

What do you do if you're self-isolating and you live in a houseshare?

First and foremost, tell your housemates! They have a right to know if they are living with someone who is self-isolating for whatever reason as they may well have to self-isolate too as a result.

Furthermore, let us know too! We need to alert our full team and contractors so that can fully respect your isolation moving forward.

Do we expect students to continue paying their rent?

Firstly, your students are signed up to a fixed term AST that requires them to pay rent up until the 30th June 2021. So they are contracted to pay rent until that point.

To go into a bit more detail, students are given funding by the Student Loans Company (SLC) to pay for their rent and tuition fees. Different students get different levels of funding relative to their personal circumstances. Some students skip SLC funding altogether and are entirely funded by their parents instead.

The good news for landlords is that SLC have issued a statement that student loans will be paid as planned for the 20/21 academic year.

Do we expect professional and residential tenants to continue paying their rent?

This is a trickier topic. Across the board, we've seen many companies from many sectors and industries make wholesale cuts and redundancies leaving many people out of work.

While the initial instability of the hospitality sector seemed to be levelling out and our house share portfolio was nearing full capacity again, we're now entering the second/third wave of infections and are starting to see rooms becoming available again.

If any of your tenants are struggling, we'll be sure to contact you right away. Likewise if any of your tenants are outside of their fixed terms and have handed in notice, we'll make sure that you're aware of this as soon as possible.

The professional house share market naturally dies down during October/November/December following a rush in July to September, so empty rooms during the winter can be harder to refill. However our team are on hand to keep pushing hard to keep your properties as fully occupied as possible and empty rooms refilled as early as possible next year.

Are The Living Room still conducting viewings?

Yes. But in line with guidance we won't be conducting in person viewings if at all possible.

Since COVID-19 struck, we've been steadily recording video clips of our properties and posting Video Tours on Youtube. We're continuing with this project ahead of viewings for the 21/22 academic year where we don't expect to be able to conduct viewings as normal.

We'll continue to review the Welsh Government's guidance and will make changes to our viewing policies as and when. The safety of our tenants and our team is our main priority.

As a matter of precaution, our team members and any person viewing a property will also wear a mask when conducting a viewing, but we also have shoe coverings and gloves in case tenants request this too.

What are you saying if a tenant says they can't pay rent?

Firstly, we are being empathetic. Now is not a time for us to be heavy-handed, however we can confirm that we're not giving anything away on your behalf either. We want to understand what's happened to them so that we can give relevant advice.

If they've lost their job, we want to make sure that they feel that they can talk to us about it and keep us updated. There are new schemes available now, like the Tenancy Saver Loan, which may be useful for any tenant struggling to pay rent.

Once we've given the relevant advice to the tenant, we'll then get in touch with you to let you know that you have a tenant in difficulty.

We have our fingers and toes crossed that as many of our tenants as possible are unaffected. However if one of your tenants is struggling, I hope that we're able to band together to come up with solutions that help everyone.

How will maintenance function throughout the COVID-19 epidemic?

Our maintenance service is currently limited due to Cardiff currently being in Alert Level 4. While we can continue to get works done as long as the tenants and the contractor are well and are showing no symptoms, please let us know whether your household is self-isolating or do not feel comfortable with a contractor coming around. If so, we can try to figure out an alternative or postpone the works.

Our maintenance contractors should always be wearing masks whenever they come around the complete work as standard.

Now that we're in lockdown again, we have reduced our service back to emergency only maintenance wherever possible. What do we class as emergency maintenance? The below list is not exhaustive and there may be other examples of emergency maintenance.

- Gas leaks;
- Electrical power cuts;
- Running water failure (e.g. broken showers);
- Boiler and/or Hot Water failure;
- Appliance failure (e.g. washing machine and fridge freezer. Dishwashers and tumble-dryers are not included as emergency works);
- Severe water ingress (e.g. roof leaks) or water leaks (e.g. shower/bathroom leaks);
- Damages caused by forced entry/theft/break-ins;
- Necessary safety certificates required by law (i.e. gas safety, electrical installation, and fire alarm testing).

If a contractor has visited your home, we highly recommend that you disinfect any areas that the contractor has worked and touched during his time inside your property.

Are our contractors being checked for COVID-19?

Only in line with their own usage of the NHS COVID-19 app.

While we are asking for our contractors to keep us updated should they display any symptoms of - or test positive for - COVID-19, it's important to remember that all contractors that we use, while trusted tradesmen and good at what they do, are sub-contracted and are not employees of The Living Room. With this in mind, The Living Room cannot guarantee the cleanliness or health of our contractors.

Please bear in mind that you do have the right to refuse or postpone maintenance if you feel that you do not want a contractor entering your home if you've tested positive or are self-isolating.