Accidental Landlord? What to Do With a London Property You Didn't Plan to Let

The short answer

You have a London property you never planned to let, and three honest choices: sell it, let it long term, or let it short term. Each is right for a different situation, and the wrong one is expensive to undo. This guide runs the three options side by side so you can decide with the numbers in front of you.

An accidental landlord is anyone who owns a property they did not buy to let: an inherited flat, a home you moved out of but could not sell, a place that came to you through a relationship change. The property is real; the question is what it costs you to hold it and what it can earn.

Your three options

1. Sell

Selling is the right call when the market is on your side, you want the capital now, and you would rather not carry the responsibilities of a landlord. The costs are agent fees, legal fees, and any capital gains tax due. It is clean, but it is also final: once sold, the property is gone and with it any future income or growth.

2. Long let — the traditional route

A long let, an assured shorthold tenancy, is what most people picture. It is also the route that has changed most in the last two years.

The Renters' Rights Act removed no-fault evictions, so a long-let tenant cannot be asked to leave simply because you want the property back. Every private rental in England must be registered on the Private Rented Sector database. The Decent Homes Standard now applies to the private sector, and there is a landlord ombudsman to answer to. Being a long-let landlord in 2026 is a regulated job, not a passive one.

On top of that, higher-rate landlord income tax sits in the 42–47% band — a rate the Autumn Budget 2026 raised by two further points — and mortgage interest relief remains restricted. A long let is predictable, but the money after tax and compliance is often thinner than landlords expect.

3. Short let — serviced accommodation, managed for you

A short let is a furnished property let for days or weeks at a time, usually through Airbnb or Booking.com. Done well, it earns more than a long let because you sell the property by the night rather than the month. The trade-off is that it takes real work: pricing, guest communication, cleaning between every stay, and compliance with short-let rules.

That is the part a management company absorbs. Airhosts manages the property end to end — listing, pricing, guest comms, cleaning, maintenance and compliance — so the short-let option is genuinely hands-off for you.

The numbers: short let versus long let

Across the areas Airhosts manages, a one-bedroom flat short-lets at roughly £155 to £285 a night, against long-let rents of £1,300 to £2,900 a month. A well-managed short-let typically earns 20–40% more net income than the same property on a long let.

The income guide runs the full worked example, including the running costs that sit between gross and net. The short answer is that the gap comes from occupancy and rate, and both are set by how well the property is managed — not by luck.

What short-letting actually involves

A short let is not "a long let with more turnover". The obligations are different:

• The 90-night rule. Across Greater London, a whole home can be let on short stays for up to 90 nights a calendar year without planning permission, whether it is your own home or an investment property. Going beyond that needs planning permission from the council. Stays of 90 nights or more in a row do not count towards the limit, so mid-term lets can fill the rest of the year.
• Registration. Short lets are moving into a national registration scheme, so the property must be recorded and compliant.
• Standards. Guests expect hotel-standard cleaning, linen and response times. That is an operation, not a hobby.

None of this is hard to get right; it is hard to get right alone, around a full-time job. That is the honest distinction between the options, and it is why the managed route exists.

What management costs

Airhosts charges a management fee of 12.5% + VAT (Full-Time, minimum six-month commitment) or 15% + VAT (Flexible, 30-day rolling), calculated on net revenue after the booking platform's own fees. The fees guide sets out exactly what that covers and what sits on top.

The fee is the price of not running the operation yourself. For most landlords the net result is still higher than a long let, because a professionally managed listing books more nights and holds a better rate than a self-managed one.

How to decide

Three questions settle it:

1. Do you need the capital now, or do you want income? If capital, sell. If income, let.
2. Can you carry the obligations of a long let — registration, the Decent Homes Standard, no-fault eviction gone? If not, the short-let route removes most of them.
3. Do you want to run a short-let operation yourself, or hand it to a team that does this every day?

If your answer to the last question is the second one, the pricing page shows the two plans, and a free income estimate will put your property's specific numbers in writing.

If you have just become an accidental landlord and want the comparison run on your postcode before you commit to anything, get in touch and we will show you the long-let versus short-let numbers in plain English.