We have just got rid of the poshest flat in the Millard portfolio, before it was even finished. Now it has gone, I can explain why: one reason was, ahem, my overdraft, which needed attending to. The second was the recent rise in interest rates – which threatened to send into the stratosphere the repayments on the monster mortgage I would have needed to complete my purchase.

There was another reason, too – low-level panic about the type of tenant who would typically inhabit such a residence. Put it this way: this flat would have cost us so much, we would have had to let it out at £1,200 a week just to pay the mortgage.

Imagine the type of person willing (and able) to pay that kind of money – they would probably have installed a butler in the spare room. No, it was all too frightening, so we gladly flogged the place to someone with the backbone to cope.

The trouble with high-end tenants is that your care of them must be spectacular for the charge to make sense.

BACKGROUND

• Tales of a landlady: Tax reforms

• Into the sunset

BACKGROUND

• Tales of a landlady: Degrees of success

• Tales of a landlady: It pays to shop around

• Tales of a landlady: Residents only

• The ties that bind

• How low can you go?

BACKGROUND

• Tales of a landlady: Avoiding the agents

• Tales of a landlady: In the dock

• Tales of a landlady: the age of reason

• Tales of a landlady: Heroes and villains

• Tales of a landlady: High maintenance

BACKGROUND

• Back to the ’burbs

• A waste of energy?

• Tenants like gardens, but not tending them

• In the doghouse

• Parking mad

It’s eviction time

Can investors profit from the rise in repossessions?

• It’s eviction time

BACKGROUND

• Do property workshops work?

• A letting gamble

• Spread betting

• When buy-to-let turns from a hobby into a living

Tales of a landlady: Persistent complaint

How can lettings agents justify annual renewal fees, asks Rosie Millard

BACKGROUND

• Landlords: halo or horns?

• Bidding wars

• Time to quit the ring?

For Ian Gardiner, lettings agent at John Wilcox in Holland Park, west London, £1,000 a week is little more than small change. “We have tenants paying £5,000 a week,” he says. “One of ours has just paid that for two years. Up front.” Blimey. For what? “For a really nice flat in Holland Park,” he says.

Admittedly, it was a bit of a dream space. “The landlord had spent about half a million pounds kitting it out in Andrew Martin furniture,” Gardiner explains.

I take it that “furnished” doesn’t mean two sofas and a coffee table, then? You bet. “Oh, fully furnished means everything,” he says. “Everything. Plasma-screen TV, funky cutlery, gorgeous crockery. The only thing high-end tenants should bring in is their clothes. And a toothbrush, of course.

“People like that demand the best. They work every hour God sends and they need to be kept happy. Also, their wives need to be kept happy. Or their husbands, if the wife is the breadwinner.”

So, what sort of service do such clients demand? Would you charge round to change a light bulb? “No, we don’t change light bulbs, but if the TV breaks, or there are problems with the dishwasher, we have a whole team who would get down there immediately,” he says. “With that kind of tenant, you don’t want to keep them waiting– and with that kind of interior, you don’t want there to be any damage.”

Frank Harris, a City agent whose eponymous company ranges across the Square Mile, starts trembling when I mention tenants paying upwards of a grand a week. “We are not in that territory, thankfully,” he says. Why? Surely the commission must be mouthwatering.

Not to Harris. “They are a different breed, and they require careful handling,” he says. “They demand everything. It’s incredibly hard to deal with that end of the market.”

Nonetheless, with prices continuing to rise, more of us landladies might eventually have to start dealing with that end of the market. Harris’s advice? Get yourself an agent to manage the tenancy, so you don’t have to deal with furious phone calls from executives whose dishwasher has just flooded. “By and large, if you are a landlord trying to get into that market for the first time, on your own, you would be on dangerous ground,” he says, sounding a bit like an adviser to the SAS. “You need to have your hand held by a good, honest agent who works at that level.”

My friend Susan Browne, who owns six flats in Kensington, confesses that two of them are let for more than £1,000 a week. “Yes, my tenants are quite well heeled,” she says. “How do I look after them? You have to give them first-class, rapid service. If their dishwasher breaks down, you must ensure it is fixed the very next day. Even if it means buying a brand-new one. You can’t afford to let them get upset.

“I furnish the flats very well. What do I give them? Everything. Mirrors, paintings, cutlery and all the obvious big pieces, although now unfurnished is more of a trend, with relocation agencies willing to ship furniture for corporate clients.”

Does she manage the flats herself? You must be joking. “I use a managing agency, Mountgrange Heritage. I don’t want to deal with my tenants face to face, although many have become good friends. It’s more professional, and they can be properly looked after. Even if the problem is only that they have forgotten to switch on the central heating.”

I call Mountgrange and speak to Thalia Bryan, a director who spends every working day dealing with the kind of people who would rent Browne’s flats. “You have to make the tenant feel they are important and being listened to,” she says, “while not agreeing to solutions that will cost the landlord a fortune.”

For a commission of 6% (negotiable for multiple properties), Bryan will sort out tenancy grumbles, from overfluffy carpets to infestations of mice. “You must be the bridge between landlord and tenant in the high-end market. Also, quite often, you have to deal with the wife, who is in the house every day, while taking the pressure off the earner, usually the husband, who doesn’t want to come home from work to face complaints from his wife.

“It’s vital to deal with things quickly so it doesn’t boil up into a long-term irritation.” Indeed. Just imagine how foolish you would feel if an irritation turned into a void that cost you more than £1,000 a week. Unspeakable.

Mountgrange Heritage, 020 7221 2277, www.mountgrangeheritage.co.uk

buytolet@sunday-times.co.uk

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