I know there have been lots of discussions about long term lets in the past but I'd like to post a good news thread.
We have just taken our apartment back after letting it out to a Spanish resident for just over a year. We thought long and hard about taking a long term tenant as we were obviously concerned about how our apartment would be looked after and also the possible impact on our neighbours. There have been some problems on Roda with long term tenants and of course the terrible experience of one family on Phase 1, which I believe have now been resolved. However, our apartment was extremely well looked after and having just returned from our first visit since our tenant vacated, we can honestly say we are delighted at the condition he has left it in.
In our block there are currently at least 3 other properties with long term tenants and we have never had any problems of any kind, but obviously now I've said that we probably will do!!
This may be quite a contraversial post and I'm not trying to suggest that there isn't the potential for real problems with long term lets, but I think it's important to put the other side forward too. We had a management company who took great care with the vetting of our tenant - this seems to me to be the most important consideration because once they're in, it's very difficult to get them out again quickly. Payments were received regularly and everything went very smoothly from start to finish.