Few of the adverts for overseas investment properties that lure you in with glossy pictures of slim models wallowing in pools next to whitewashed villas mention the less glamorous side of owning a buy-to-let property overseas.

There’s the local utility companies to deal with, the challenges of finding a reliable cleaner and gardener, footing unexpected repair bills and the often complicated local taxation regimes.

But one challenge that no one could predict is the mountain of weird or surprising items that holiday makers leave behind in rental properties overseas for landlords to clear up .

According to Owners Direct, one of the leading private holiday home rental websites, the items most often left behind are the ones you’d think holiday makers need to get home – money, passports, false teeth, vital medicines, travel documents and car and house keys.

But although leaving behind these essentials can have serious and  expensive consequences, other belongings left behind by holiday makers are obviously too embarrassing to take home or worth retrieving.

Items found by Owners Direct landlords in properties include a pair of Father Xmas trousers, a fake beard, a false leg, a bongo drum and a full sized rubber mask of George Bush.

And being a holiday home owner might appeal to those with a thirst for free alcohol – holiday makers regularly leave behind titanic caches of unconsumed booze rather than lug it all the way back home.

But perhaps the most surprising items left behind were the most generous. One owner said a customer of theirs replaced all the light bulbs in their property with low energy ones for free.

buy to let, overseas, property, property management

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010 at 12:14 am and is filed under Letting, buy to let, fly to let. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.