Great, thanks for visiting us! Please fill out a brief enquiry form with some basic details about your property and Jason Redman will be in contact with you to discuss this further. Once we receive this, we will email you further information about the service we offer together with replies to some of the most ‘frequently asked questions’ from owners looking to let their flat over the festival. If you prefer, you can always call us on 0131 478 1294 if you would prefer an informal chat 🙂

The Festival Partnership Ltd. (SC 298092) was incorporated in 2006 as a private limited company. We have been very successful over the last 13 years in managing short term summer and festival lettings for property owners in Edinburgh. We also have a sister company called Guest Lets Ltd (SC570273) which manages holiday properties all year around on platforms such as Airbnb, Booking.com and HomeAway.

Our Director, Jason Redman is a qualified Chartered Surveyor and now has over 18 years experience arranging holiday and festival lets (with some 1000+ successful festival lets under his charge).

Our Company Secretary, Kathryn Lorimer is a qualified Chartered Accountant who has been with the business since 2006. Kathryn advises incoming guests on suitable properties to meet their requirements and looks after the financial accounting of the business.

Our personal approach and professional expertise has been key to our continued success and we believe that our longevity in the marketplace goes to prove that we are good at what we do!

We hope to be at the top of every property owner's list when considering a letting agent to assist with a short term or festival type letting and owners can trust us to look after their property and deliver a smooth letting process runs from start to finish.

Our rates are very competitive and unlike many letting and management companies we don't charge VAT on our commission.

We have 2 levels of service that we currently offer to property owners: –

A) Booking only – this service is where we advertise your property on our highly optimised website, intoduce you to a suitable festival tenant, secure the booking for you, but leave you to deal with everything else. This is for property owners who want a helping hand from a professional agent specialising in summer and festival lets, but are happy to deal with all the practicalities of the letting, more specifically detailed in points 4 to 8 below.

B) Comprehensive booking, letting and management service – most property owners choose this service where we look after your letting from start to finish. This encompasses all of the following duties and responsibilities: –

1) Viewing your property, taking photographs, providing a rental valuation and advice on how to prepare your property for a festival let

2) Tenant finding / matching / vetting and fully discussing with you the suitablity of a potential tenant for your property before proceeding

3) Professional negotiation of rental and letting terms to maximise the rental potential of your property

4) Preparation / overseeing of contract agreements and associated paperwork

5) Collection of monies, which will include all rental monies and tenant security deposit

6) Key handling – meet and greet tenant upon their arrival in Edinburgh

7) Management of letting – single point of contact for tenant during the letting in handling any management issues (including coordination of any tradesmen and visits to your property)

8) Resolving any issues regarding damage deposits before handing back to the tenant

9) Payment of Monies – we are promptly and efficient with our payments to property owners

With our comprehensive letting and management service, we’ll look after the property from start to finish and you can relax in the knowledge that the letting is being professionally managed for you.

Remuneration – our fee is a percentage of the overall rental achieved and depends upon the level of service you require. We will need to discuss your requirements before we can advise on this. Please note that that our fee does not attract VAT (unlike many other letting agents) which helps to keep our rates extremely competitive in the marketplace.

– Our fee is payable ONLY upon a successful letting, i.e. no upfront fees.

– Our fee* is percentage based and dependant upon: –

1. Betweeen 12% and 20% of the gross rental achieved
2. The level of service you require from us (i.e. booking only or fully managed)

 * we do not charge VAT on our fees (unlike other letting agents) which helps to keep our rates very competitive.

Please call Jason on 07801 472601 to discuss how we can assist and what you can expect to receive from us.

Fire Safety for Festival and Short term self catered lets

The Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 and the Fire Safety (Scotland) Regulations 2006 makes property owners responsible for taking measures to protect guests from the risks of fire. There are many different ways in which a fire could start in your property and so having a good understanding of the risks that fire poses to your property and your guests is vital to ensure their safe stay and complying with relevant legislation.

There are three core areas to Fire Safety Law compliance:

1. Fire risk assessment – conduct a thorough review of the risks of fire within your home, the people that will be visiting your property and the measures you need to put in place to keep them as safe as possible.
2. Improve and implement the appropriate fire safety measures as a result of issues highlighted in the assessment and in accordance with legislation.
3. Keep the fire risks and measures taken under regular review.

These practical fire safety measures are a good place to start: –

• To have functioning Smoke Alarms in both hallway and living room along with a heat detector alarm in the kitchen. All alarms should be interlinked, i.e. so that all alarms will simultaneously sound if one activates.
• Install Carbon monoxide detector(s) (i.e. adjacent to any gas boiler / appliances)
• Provide a Fire Blanket in the kitchen (a dry powder fire extinguisher is also recommended)
• All upholstery must comply with Furniture & Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 – i.e. your furniture will probably not comply with legislation if it was manufactured between the years 1950 to 1988.
• Make an Emergency Fire Action Plan – to include simple instructions for guests like keeping doors closed at nightime (to limit spead of fire) and advising of the route of escape from the property (i.e. it might be appropriate to post a map of fire escape route on the back of the front door) and providing the telephone number for the Fire Service.

The Scottish Government has produced some further practical guidance, which home owners contemplating leting out their property should read, please click the link below: –

Practical Fire Safety Guidance for Small Bed and Breakfast and Self-Catering Premises –http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0041/00418066.pdf

In addition, The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) offer free home (i.e. domestic premises) fire safety visits (HFSVs) comprising an assessment of fire risk within the home at that time and the provision of advice on preventing fires, avoiding fire spread and formulating an escape plan in event of fire. Additionally, SFRS staff may on occasion, if available and appropriate, fit long life battery operated smoke and heat alarm(s). Note that a HFSV is neither a substitute for responsible persons complying with their specific legal obligations under the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 nor does it signify compliance by persons with any other legislative requirement or standard. To arrange a free Home Fire Safety Visit: call 0800 0731 999; or visit www.firescotland.gov.uk

We appreciate that this information raises as many questions as it answers and are very happy to discuss with you Fire Safety at the time of visiting your property.

Gas Safety for short term let properties

If your property has a gas supply, you must ensure that gas appliances (pipework, appliances and chimneys/flues) in your property are safe and arrange for a Landlord Gas Safety Record to be carried out at least once every 12 months by a ‘Gas Safe’ registered engineer (and a certificate provided).

You will also need to consider installing Carbon Monoxide detectors adjacent to gas appliances.

For further advice please speak to The Festival Partnership or contact Gas Safe Register see below: –

Gas Safe Register
Tel: 0800 408 5500
www.gassaferegister.co.uk

Property owners have a duty of care to paying guests and must ensure that the electrical installation and appliances provided within the property are in a reasonable state of repair and in proper working order.

Whilst there is no definitive guide to what is required and the frequency of any inspections, The Electrical Safety Council suggest that the best way for Property Owners to comply with this is by having a registered electrician carry out an inspection and test of the electrical installation, known as an Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) and also Portable Appliance Testing (PAT) at suitable intervals.

Please call The Festival Partnership for further guidance on ‘Health and Safety’ considerations for short term lets and in particular festival and summer lets for self catering accommodation.

We have just migrated to this new website and will be adding many more FAQ in the coming weeks. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to contact us and Jason or Kathryn will respond personally. Thanks.