The practice of Rent 2 Rent and other similar catchy titles were recently highlighted in The Guardian newspaper and I am also aware that in the last year in this magazine many questions have been aired about this strategy in respect of the robustness of tenancy agreements, licences, lender's agreements, property insurance etc.

My particular interest is elsewhere, where it always is, in the area of property condition and compliance with legislation and good practice.

The wrangling of how these agreements work do have a cross over into this area, but only truly concern me where they may affect the ability of the 'keyholding investor' (for want of a better term) to conform to a regulatory standard.

The principle of these creative agreements is for an investor to take over a previously rented property, often previously rented out as a single residential let, and, having entered into an agreement with the property owner, to then rent out the individual rooms thereby increasing the overall rental income. It's often thought there's no great difference if a large family had lived there previously, but actually there are big differences and the implications do need to be clearly understood.

A residence when used communally by a family, with knowledge of its habits within one unit where the bathroom is used by the occupants in turn and the cooking facilities used in general for the family is an example of diverse family usage but the usage cycle within a multi let/HMO property is completely different and more demanding.