Running short lets in Bath, a World Heritage city with six million visitors a year

The council's questions and answers on the HMO direction are about shared houses and never mention holiday lets.

This is not legal or tax advice, and Upbridge does not file anything for you: no registrations and no tax returns.

The City of Bath was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1987, and in July 2021 it was inscribed a second time as one of the Great Spa Towns of Europe.

The stretch to plan for is the Christmas Market. The council says the 2024 Christmas Market drew about 444,000 visitors, and the 2026 market runs from 26 November to 13 December. If you have flats near the centre, plan the linen, the cleaners' rota and the spare keys for those three weekends in October rather than in late November.

For guests flying into Bristol, Travelwest says the A4 bus to Bath runs roughly every hour and takes just over an hour, and the last one leaves the airport around midnight. A guest whose flight lands late should know that before they book a taxi, so it belongs in the arrival message.

The council tax and any future levy are between you, the owner and an accountant. What we take on is the turnover itself. Every checkout from Guesty, Hostaway, Lodgify, Uplisting or your iCal becomes a cleaning with a photo checklist for each room, and during the market fortnight you can see on one screen which flats have been cleaned and which haven't.

For the guest coming off the late bus, we build the guest guide with the walk from the bus stop and how to get in, and they open it on their phone. Inventory per property drops after every stay, so by mid-November you know which flats need more toilet roll and coffee before the market opens.

In December you could have several owners' flats in the same few streets all checking out on a Monday morning. The account for cleaning companies puts each owner's iCal or PMS on one calendar so you can split the streets between your teams, and you keep every client.