Fast WiFi/Internet

Yes. You literally just need to buy food and laundry detergent…

Everything you would expect is in the property starting from bedroom furniture, to appliances (washing machine, dishwasher, dryer), to crockery and cookware, all the way to an iron board and iron.

Yes. Once a month we restock every house.

No more arguing over whose turn it is to buy toilet paper, black bags or dishwasher tablets. We deliver a fresh set of black bags, bleach, household cleaner, dishwasher tables + salt + rinse aid, dishwashing liquid, toilet rolls etc… every single month.

Yes. All houses have a lounge space with sofa(s).

The lounges are furnished with a large set of sofas, or one lovely corner sofa, a big screen TV and a VirginMedia/Sky set top box so you can watch your favourite programs. A small minority (2 out of 28 at last count Mar 2016) of properties have cozy lounges (read: as cute small sofa set with nice TV).

The most important. For each house we get the fastest we can!.

With each property we have ensured each room gets a decent and fast signal. We’ve done this at times by buying very expensive additional WiFi routers sporting over 1,300mbps wireless speeds which means that even with a low signal strength you can still take advantage of the full available internet speed.

The internet provided is for residential use. If you need business level reliability you are using the service at your own risk and are encouraged to either get your own internet line or make sure to have a 4G dongle as backup. VirginMedia (who provides most of the properties) can also from time to time have outages.

The housemates and culture of course varies between properties. Almost all residents are in their late 20s to early 30s and are full-time working professionals. We try to rent to people we would be comfortable living with ourselves and in fact most of the Kingdom Houses staff actually also live in a Kingdom Houses – what competitor can claim that?

Time changes the culture too and we’ve seen a house start off mostly guys and slowly over the years transition into an all girls house. We’ve seen a house start off being very European and then over time end up being mostly British. Most of our customers are British.

Each property has a limit to the amount of occupants it can support. We accept couples but due to this limit it means only one or two couples per house (depending on all the facilities available, size of rooms and other safety considerations).

You will rent on the industry standard assured short-hold tenancy agreement which operates an initial fixed period of 6 months, after which you can serve 1 month notice to vacate.

A draft contract can be provided to you upon request. You will pay a deposit of one month’s rent less the move-in fee of £150. The move-in fee is fully inclusive and covers the admin, contract, referencing, credit check, inventory check-in, and inventory check-out.

Yes. Within reason. Otherwise it costs.

It is your home and you can have friends visit (with the approval of your housemates) and for a short time. We need to be made aware of anyone extra staying as a guest for safety and insurance reasons. To this extent you need to book-in any guests via our fully automated online portal.

You get ten free nights per quarter after which it costs £5 per guest per night. The online portal charges you once you go over ten bookings in that quarter.

Your guests cannot sleep in the lounge or put up a tent in the back yard or some weird thing. If you have an overnight guest you must accommodate them in your room (or another housemate’s room if they have given you permission). Of course you can always write to us to see if we can make an allowance/exception.

You CANNOT have guests when you are not home. You have to “host” them otherwise they are not guests but are strangers that you are sub-letting to and we could ask the police to forcefully remove them as they will have no right to be there.

We have in-house DIY guys and a host of contacts.

You visit https://kingdomhouses.freshdesk.com/ and raise a ticket and one of our staff will attend to it as soon as possible. We get a lot of tickets and low priority issues are typically dealt with at a slower pace.

Our aim is to have a turn-around of five days on things however certain repairs (especially where parts need to be ordered) can be tricky and take longer.

Simples. Call/SMS our standard number 078 007 60556 or call/SMS our emergency number 07495 008 711.

This is strictly for emergency use. If you cause a call-out for a non-emergency you will be liable for the call-out fee of £35.

Yes. For communal areas once a week..

The cleaner is there to do the cleaning that a housemate typically won’t. They are instructed to always leave dishes and focus on more important things like shower trays, floors, carpets etc…

For a fee, yes. You will need to arrange this with us and it must be regular. For once off cleaning try Fantastic Cleaners cleaning company.

No. All fees and charges are paid upfront.

Upon moving in you will be provided with a professional inventory and the condition of your room will be compared to this inventory upon moving out. Most people are not charged anything. To be one of those people you need to thoroughly clean your room to the highest standard so that a new tenant can move in straight away. Generally if we need to spend anything more than 10 minutes or if we need to replace something that should not have broken (you cracked a glass door for example) then we unfortunately need to charge for that.

It would also be appreciated if you could let us know about any cleaning/repairs we will need to do when you vacate. We may not always have a cleaner/DIY guy on duty so it helps for our planning.

You pay rent directly into the Kingdom Houses bank account. This can be done from your online banking, via a standing order, or by depositing money directly into the account at your local Barclays Bank branch.

We also accept cash rent payments at our office.

We accept credit & debit card payments via PayPal but a fee applies.

We accept PayPal payments.

Your deposit is safely kept by a government backed scheme called The Deposit Protection.

It is kept there safely until the end of your tenancy. As we do not hold your deposit you cannot deduct your last month’s rent from the deposit.

No. We operate professional houses and also Christian houses. Everyone is welcome in each property as we do not discriminate however we reserve the right of admission and will not place you in a property where we believe there is a risk of upsetting the social cohesion.

Kingdom Houses started within a church community and as such some of our properties are Christian houses. Over 80% however are professional houses as we’ve found the demand for high quality accommodation to be very high.

No. Utility bills are fixed at £80 per month. All prices advertised on Kingdom Houses and other portals will be advertised exclusive of the bills.

Your contract will have it written in that bills are fixed at £80 per month. There will be no uncertainty about how much rent you pay each month and you will pay (even if the bills come in higher).

Beware though if housemates jointly abuse the utilities and rack up big gas/electric bills these will be factored into future rent increases. We take meter readings every month and will send a notice email around if the usage comes in too high.

All rooms come fully furnished. Exactly what furnishings there but generally a double bed, bed side table, chest of drawers and a wardrobe.

Some rooms can be very generously furnished with extras (especially as those before you have left suitable furniture behind) while others can come with the basic set. It is up to you to view the room and determine you are satisfied with what is offered.

No. Your price is guaranteed and fix for at least twelve months.

On your tenth month you will receive a rent review email informing you what your rent will be from month 13 onwards. This will allow you a whole month to think it over and still be in a position to serve your one month’s notice if you feel the new price is unreasonable.

Call us ASAP to pay the full holding deposit and sign the contract. Until we do not have both the holding deposit and signed contract from you we will not remove the room from the market.

It has happened many times before that prospective tenants take more than two days to pay the holding deposit and in the meanwhile someone gazumps them. Don’t let it happen to you. We operate a first past the post system (first person to satisfy the requirement of signed contract and paid monies).

The standard stuff; Employer reference, Previous landlord reference and a credit check.

Affordability wise you should earn at least 2x (after tax) the price of the room you intend to take. We do not accept any form of DSS/benefits (if on disability we can make an exception but your paperwork/history must be pristine). Exceptions will be made where you have a credit worthy guarantor willing to sign the tenancy agreement.

No. We have a limited amount of rooms to rent out and once they are full they are full. We will rather wait for someone who will pay the asking price.

Our properties are of a very high standard and include many amenities that competitors do not include such as a weekly cleaner, toilet paper, cleaning supplies etc… with no nasty surprise costs or fees.

Furthermore there will always be the odd outlier where perhaps someone is just renting out a room in their house and because they want to pick tenants from a very large pool have listed the room much cheaper than market rate.