1.7 Billion Reasons to Rethink Rent Arrears: Futureproofing Lettings with Julie Ford

In this compelling episode of The Viking Chat, Kristjan Byfield welcomes industry powerhouse Julie Ford of Lettings Advice Service for a conversation that might just change the way you view rent arrears, evictions, and the entire tenant-landlord dynamic.

With over 30 years in housing, local authority liaison, tenant support, and compliance, Julie Ford brings a razor-sharp perspective on the biggest challenges facing the private rented sector (PRS)- from the staggering £1.7 billion rent arrears crisis to the looming impact of the Renters (Reform) Bill and a rapidly shifting social landscape.

Whether you're a high-street letting agent, a Build to Rent provider, or a property manager navigating the grey areas between compassion and compliance, this episode unpacks critical insights you can’t afford to ignore.

🔥 Key Topics We Dive Into:

✅ The £1.7 Billion Problem That Nobody's Solving
Why are rent arrears spiralling- and what’s the real human and financial cost to tenants, landlords, and the wider PRS? Julie reveals how a lack of awareness, access to funding, and siloed communication are fuelling a crisis that could be prevented.

✅ From Possession to Prevention: The Case for Grant-First Strategies
Julie breaks down how grants, support services, and better signposting could resolve arrears before they ever reach court- saving landlords money, sparing tenants trauma, and helping agents reduce conflict and workload.

✅ Renters (Reform) Bill & the End of Section 21: What Comes Next?
With Section 21 on the chopping block and Section 8 under revision, agents need to reimagine their processes. Julie discusses how reform must go hand-in-hand with better tribunal access, clearer evidential requirements, and meaningful funding.

✅ The Rise of the AI Tenant: Are You Ready for What’s Coming?
Julie raises a fascinating point about generational shifts: we’re raising tenants in an age of automation, where AI handles everything from groceries to gas bills. So why are rental arrears still handled with outdated methods and clunky systems?

✅ Why the PRS Needs a Cultural Shift- Not Just Legislative Reform
We talk about the human side of arrears- mental health, shame, domestic abuse, and poor literacy- and how lettings professionals can be better equipped to spot red flags early, intervene compassionately, and still protect landlord interests.

✅ The Role of Letting Agents in Futureproofing the PRS
From revising arrears letters to training staff in soft skills and financial signposting, Julie outlines practical steps that agencies can take today to build more sustainable, resilient tenancies- without compromising commercial performance.

💡 Why This Episode Matters

The lettings sector is at a crossroads. With rental demand high, tenant protections expanding, and eviction pathways narrowing, the old ways of doing things no longer work. Julie Ford’s experience across housing associations, government liaison, and tenancy support puts her in a unique position to connect the dots—and help our industry step up.

For letting agents, BTR operators, PBSA managers and landlord-focused suppliers, this episode is a masterclass in proactive problem-solving, policy awareness, and long-term thinking. It’s also a reminder that a better PRS isn’t just about better laws- it’s about better conversations.

🧠 Who Should Tune In?

• Lettings agents juggling arrears, renewals & reform
• BTR & PBSA providers seeking tenant-first strategies
• Property managers balancing commercial outcomes with social impact
• Suppliers, CRMs, and tech partners exploring meaningful innovation
• Anyone serious about building a more resilient, human-centred PRS

Transcript

Hello everybody and welcome to the latest episode of the Viking Chat and I am delighted to be joined today by none other than Ms Julie Ford of the Lettings Advice Service. Julie, darling, thank you for coming in. Thank you for having me. Doing the in-person sure that shizzle. Absolutely. And having fun with trains on the way down, I gather. Oh don't even get me started. The travel disruption seemed to have been my nemesis today. Trains are awesome I gather and that's why I drive everywhere. Cool, so on that public service announcement. So, Judy, we're going to kick around a few things today. So, you and I have known each other probably for a good decade, I would say maybe longer. Probably longer, but bearing in mind we both started in this industry when we were two, that would be about... You know, exactly. Fine, that's why we're so young still. Absolutely. So we danced around working with or around similar people. But then you and I really got to know each other properly a couple of years ago with the Zoot Plertings Advisory Board. So we did quite a lot on that. So one thing that really struck me, because obviously like I said, we knew each other early doors, I didn't really know what you'd kind of gone off and done and you'd leveraged expertise and we'll go into that in more detail. I mean letting's advisory service, don't think we need to take too many wild guesses on what that does. But the thing that when we were looking at expanding the Zoopla board and we wanted to try and bring in people with different experiences, different mindsets, obviously all around lettings, obviously. But when you and I were catching up on all the things you'd done or what you were doing, The thing that really sparked my interest, because I still to this day haven't heard anyone else talking about this, is your approach and attitude to handling situations with tenants in arrears. Cool. So do you want to say a little bit more about that? Yeah, absolutely. So I think for me it became really predominant when COVID hit because there was a monitorium on evictions, people were were being furloughed, laid off, losing their jobs left, right and centre. So, scaring times. So, renter rears were building up quite considerably. And there wasn't really anything that landlords could do about it. They couldn't evict, because the courts were shut. Yeah. So, to me, there was a problem that needed solving. I'm a bit like the A-team. If you've got a problem and no one else can fix it, call me. So, are you mad at? I don't know. I think sometimes I'm a bit Mr T. Oh yeah. Yeah. Don't let it fly. No. - I think you know little bling, so go. - I do like milk. - That was a terrible, Mr. T, impersonation. - So I was like, there's a problem here and I need to solve it. And when I worked at the Citizens Advice, that was my kind of like, I moved into the dark side, worked for the Citizens Advice for six years as a housing and homeless law specialist. It opened up my knowledge base, I suppose, because-- - Because before that, primarily an agent, right? - Yeah, absolutely. So it'd been purely agent-based. It had been property management. So it had been that one side of the coin. Moving into third sector, you were then on the other side looking out almost. And I didn't realize there were so many grants and trust that tenants could tap into. So at the Citizen's advice, we didn't necessarily do so much of that, but I still took that knowledge away with me. And then of course, when COVID hit and people were in rent arrears, I was like, ha ha. - Hold on a minute. - I have the solution. So I basically set up sort of overnight on my laptop, the rent arrears support service, RAS. And that kind of move forward, I started working with landlords whose tenants were in arrears. We were finding grants and funding to pay off those arrears so that the landlord has the money in the back pocket where it should be. And the tenant doesn't have the debt and the threat of eviction. So it was solving two people's problems at once. - So in a nutshell, guys, what we're talking about here is not going the typical route of section eights. Well, 'cause I'm not even referring to section 21s anymore. Section 8, rent arrears, court proceedings, evictions, bailiffs, the traditional methodology of pursuing serious rent arrears, but your thing was, let's see if there's another solution. Because let's face it, right? In most instances, and we know there are the rogue element, but they are exactly that, a tiny rogue element, in most instances tenants don't want to be in their head and yeah and a quiet life basically and a quiet life and and to meet that you know most don't want to stitch over their landlord 100% you know most just and and don't want the stress and the pressure that comes with being pursued about that the concerns over CCJs and court proceedings and everything else so yeah I mean the moment you told me about this and and you don't hear about this anywhere like you said you didn't know about this until until you went to work for CAB. - Yeah. - And still to this day, I mean, I know about it because of our conversations, but outside of our sphere, I've never heard anyone else talk about this. I've never once seen citizens advice reach out to our industry or the NRLA or, you know, any way into the PRS and being like, hey guys, by the way, there is a different way to do this. - Interestingly, on the back of that, I actually reached out to Step Change because Step Change wrote an article that basically was asking the government to create almost like a tenant, a Rears service, a tenant support service for a Rears. And I was like, I'm doing this, me, pick me, pick me. So I managed to get in touch with the CEO and I managed to have a conversation. And they were like, oh yeah, if he's great, this is great, but it's individual landlords, so they weren't gonna back it. and I'm like, but I'm bringing you a solution. You had the problem, I've already solved it. - And you've already ringed funds to the funding 'cause you've already created the grant system that puts this funding there to be tapped into. You don't have to create any new funds. They're there waiting to be used. - Absolutely, and the thing is, when you look at the funding available at the moment, for this financial year, there's 1.7 billion pounds worth of funding available for tenants to tap into if they can't afford their rent. - That's insane. - 1.7 billion. - Wow. So I mean, what could the average rent, what's the average rent in the UK now, about 1,500 a month, or is it quite, not quite that high, maybe more like 1,250. - I think the last time I saw was 1,300 and-- - So let's round it, let's call it 15,000 a year. - Yeah. - Give or take. Then what did you say is available, about 1.7 billion? - 1.7 billion at the moment. - So at 15,000 a year, I mean, 1,000 properties, would be 15 million. So about a hundred thousand months of rent arrears sat in an account. Yeah, so and I've always found this fascinating because I love it when people take a different approach to solving a problem. I think particularly in our industry we're very, very good at doing what's always been done and then moaning about the fact that it isn't a very good process without actually going, well hold on, why do we do that? You know, and there's a couple of things we've done over the years with bass which very much stand out at that, our property life skills service where we teach our tenants basic things like how to use a fuse board and how to bleed a radiator, balance a boiler, maintain your drains, identify, condensation and mould. Who knew that would come in handy with A-Wabs coming around. And the same year, so 2012 we rolled that out and the same year we rolled out something we call basic appliances which is temporary loan appliances that we have. So fridge freezers, plug-in rads, hot plates and combi-ons. So we have a handful of each of those and the first thing we do in a managed property where a tentacles up and goes, my fridge is gone is we just stick one in an Uber or in the back of one of our cars depending what time of day it is and our diary and we deliver that free of charge we don't charge the landlord or the tenant and we plonk it in there and that was very simply a thing of us going you know in those instances oh yes it's inconvenient for the tenant but landlords and again their property managers are not sat there with a stack of relevant appliances in the office just waiting for someone to fit them. If the appliance needs a repair it's almost always going to need a part and that's almost always going to need ordering. So what do you do in that time gap? And the landlord's done nothing wrong. You as the property manager can't make this stuff materialize quicker but at the same time you've got a tenant who's paying rent, you know, if it's a house share, that's a whole lot of food that's going to go off if you can't do with a fridge for five days. - Yeah. - And if the tenant's got to do takeouts or delivery for the next week, whilst you get it sorted, where are those conversations around conversation, around incurred costs, and everything else, the stress and aggravation that you get. And what we found was those appliances, I don't think we spent more than a thousand pound on all of the appliances, 'cause it doesn't need to be swanky stuff, right? - No. - Also with the fridge freezers, don't need to be big all singing or dancing big enough that people can chuck stuff in. You've got that temporary solution that gives you those two, three, five, seven days to do a proper fix, fix or replace. Bosh, everyone's happy. But that all came about us going, well landlords and property managers can't move faster. But if I was that tenant, I'd be pretty peeved that I've got nowhere to keep my food for next week. And how do we solve that problem? And obviously the typical industry thing is not my problem. We're fixing it as quick as we can. And I've always felt in London, because of the rents and the fees that agents typically charge in London, we've got the scope to be a bit more creative. And we've got the scope to say, what else can we do to solve this problem? But no, I think it really struck me. I also like anything that takes a more kind of holistic and empathetic approach, rather than this default position. I think we're seeing it a lot at the moment with talk around the Renters' Rights Act, about the changes that are coming in and there's a lot of default language where people are talking about the broken PRS and all this sort of stuff, because they're defaulting to the fact that every tenant is on some sort of swindle. Every tenant's there to go, oh, oh, so now it's three months rent arrears and it will take me a year to get in front of a judge and oh, I can contest the rent increase for free and that will put that off for another year and all I can report them for a Wab's law for condensation and I can bounce every three months and you know, and yet if you stop and think about it, Jesus Christ, no tenant wants to be doing any of that stuff, right? The average tenant wants a safe and reliable home to live in that they pay what they think is relatively reasonable for it. And ultimately, unless something breaks, they're pretty much left alone. and equally landlord gets their rent paid on time and tenant does a reasonable job of looking after it and everyone's happy days. - Absolutely, and that's pretty much the whole point of lettings. You just, everybody wants an easy life. Landlord just wants the rent paid so he can pay the mortgage and everything else. Tenant just wants to be left alone. They've got a roof over their heads. - They just want to own? - Absolutely, but they need that security as well and I think that's where the renters rights actors really fallen down because I think actually removed the security for tenants hugely. Because I'm speaking to tenants who are like I've got children in a in a school catchment area I signed a 24 month contract on purpose now that's going to go what if the landlord wants to sell I'm screwed. So this was really interesting this was something I flagged quite early doors with MHCLG both at our Zoopla advisory meetings that they came to but also letting's industry council stuff that they attended as well. And yeah, I mean, look, we all know the act is still open to change and interpretation. I think the important thing was, I think some people had too many expectations of the act. Oh, we need more detail. We need more this. We need more fringe cases. No, there's too much being legislated for them to drill into that much detail. And in reality as well, there's always an element of put it in the real world, what happens and we'll kind of figure that stuff out. - Yeah, Caste Law will just fill in the gray areas, won't it? - Yeah, Caste Law will fill in some. There's some stuff, you know, we talked about the rent tribunal, you know, there is a concern and I'm still cautious about this 'cause I think, one of my questions over how this is implemented is, we're moving into a very different era of tenant. And something that isn't getting talked about a lot in the world of AI, which is getting talked about a lot, is the new AI-empowered tenant. 'Cause if there's one thing you and I know, and a lot of ages have been in the game know, tenant and a lot of landlords as well, but with the Renters' Rights Act coming in, tenants historically are very poorly informed on what their rights and responsibilities are within the lettings market. And that has, that information is quite hard. If you don't know what you're looking for, we all know that information is quite hard to find in a digestible, practical, plain English context where a tenant with no understanding of the property industry or property law can actually read it, digest it and go, ah, my landlord should have done XYZ, or my agent or I should have done X, Y, Z. And I think, and look, a perfect example of that is, we've got the deposit laws, the tenancy deposit laws, which are now 18 years old, and we still have tenants who are utterly clueless as to their rights and responsibilities under that, and primarily their rights. That has always kind of benefited your, Let's call them laxadaisical, landlords and agents, those who are kind of middle-roading it and below because they have always been able to kind of muddle on because there weren't these, A, there weren't particularly clear frameworks on what happens in what instance and what a landlord or agent should have done, but also how a tenant enacts at what their right side and how they can enforce it. Because there was always that groundwork. You know again we talk about homes and tenants and again we come back to this point of terms they don't want to have battles they're letting agents and landlords they don't want to come home and have to trawl through their contracts and research clauses and they just want to be left at home but the difference now is is this world of AI. This world of AI that we're coming into in it and particularly this next phase that we will see gain more and more traction next year, this agentric AI, where AI will start to be proactive for you. You won't need to ask it stuff. We're already starting to see it, right? But you will see this more and more. And so what I think we will start to see is we will start to see tenants. And let's not forget, right? The data tells us Tenants don't want to have a phone call Mm-hmm. They don't want to they they sure as hell don't want to come in in person to your office No, they don't like face-to-face They find it too personal too confrontational for the same reason they don't really want to get on a phone They don't want to be put on the spot with a question or a decision They want time to think about things so most tenets as we know prefer WhatsApp text or email The challenge with that now is You've got at the moment we've still got a tenant's default reaction to something in 612 18 months time. I think we will see a growing number and again Let's remember tenants are typically a younger demographic younger people are typically faster to adopt technology Where? ultimately if no no reaction by the tenant, you know, you will have an email come in saying, "Oh, your landlord wishes to put your rent up in line with the contract and the act and market data shows XYZ and here's the rent that we're proposing." And what I wonder is right now, the rent tribunal thing, when this first came up in the initial Renters Reform Act with the Tories a couple of years ago, my response before we were on this wave of AI, my response to agents, to fellow agents at the time was, I don't need to worry about this. Like, I've been a letting agent for 23 years. I've never had a tenant in any of the companies I've worked for, even mentioned a rent tribunal. Even in my immediate circle of friends, I can never remember a fellow agent being like, "Oh God, we've got another rent increase going to tribunal." They do happen. - Yeah, I agree with that. And I looked at the data for last year, for 2024, for the tribunal and how many rent appeals went through. And it was 900. - Yeah, tiny. - Now you think how many tenants there are. - Yeah, what is it? 4.6. - 4.6 million households, isn't it? - Yeah. - So it's more tenants. So 900 rent appeals went to tribunal and on average they took eight months to complete. - Yeah. - So. - Now, like I said, when this was first floated in the original Rent-A-Sort format two years ago, pre-AI, just as AI was starting to, but we had no idea about how quickly it was gonna go and what that looked like. You know, I've gotta say I kind of purpoor people's caution over this 'cause it was like, "Guys, seriously, who? "What tenant is doing this?" What I wonder is 12 months from now, with the current framework, which as we know, is appalling in that clause because it's just removed any friction for the tenant at all. - Absolutely. - No cost to do it, no backdated increase, no reward for a landlord offering below market either. 'Cause that was always the, that was my nice thing with a couple of the tribunals where the tribunal actually awarded the landlord more than they'd asked, which I totally agree with. You should be rewarded when you're trying to be fairer to your tenant and then get taken to task. But I wonder, like I said, 12, 18 months from now, now a lot of tenants don't do it 'cause they're A, they're not that inclined and B, they're totally unaware of the fact they even have access to them. But when your chat GBTs, your Gemini's, your whatever going, "Oh, here's a rent increase proposal from your letting agent. I've drafted a response. What do you think?" And in that response, it's going, "Well, as you know, following the Renters' Rights Act and the Rent Reform Bill, we are now entitled and as such, we will be enforcing our right to escalate that because there's no cost, there's no implication, they're not doing anything wrong, they're just enforcing their right." I wonder also So how many tenants will even read the response that AI has drafted? Probably not. I think they will give it a cursory glance over and go, "Pfft, send it, see what happens." And so that's my only thing with a lot of the reframing that's happened as the Renters' Rights Act is agents have always got away with making more than a reasonable amount mistakes because tenants are largely unaware of what that framework is with tenants being so well informed and like I said with this with this super computer sat behind it going ah well now A-wabs law is in you know this was first reported to you because also let's not forget AI you know we're already plugging this in in both of our businesses we can plug this into Google we can plug this into Outlook it can have access to every email we send every document we save, every contract we issue, we can give it access to the whole lot. So it can go, ah, well, you know, as per AWAB's law, this was reported on this and yes, whilst you did the initial investigation within the required seven days, the next step was that you required a contractor to be appointed within seven days and that has not been fulfilled and as such we are now exercising our right. And yeah, so yeah, that's my only question is that AI is making this stuff so simple to do now. And look, we're not the only industry worrying about this. This will be every single industry out there. But when you're dealing with something as personal and all-encompassing as someone's home, And you are literally taking away the vast majority and again that you and I touched on it before this Doesn't mean it's right. No And this is where I think agents are gonna have to up their game 10 times more than they are now not just to understand all these changes are coming in But to know them well enough that when you get that AI drafted email that's wrong You know to go (slurping) Not sure if you look this up online, but it's not 100% accurate, and this is where actually, this is actually what needed to happen, or what your rights are, or what the process is. - But I think that's a wider problem across the industry anyway. I mean, when I was a property manager, and you know as well as I do that I am a geek, so when it came to doing my job, I knew that tenancy agreement backwards. I could quote you the clauses. - We're all geeks. - I could quote you the clauses. So if I've got a tenant on the end of the phone giving me some GIP, I'm like, I think you'll find it's clause 2.5.4, (mumbles) but I don't know if agents know their contracts anymore. I mean, I speak to agents and property managers and I'm like, what does it say in your contract? Well, I don't know, but it's your contract. Why don't you know what it says? - Now look, part of that is you've got, and look, at base, we've done this around the renters rights act for now. We might change it, but we've just signed up with good Lord. We're going to start using their contracts now for the last 20 odd years We've prided ourselves on having our own drafts to tenancy agreements that we know inside out now But I think that's that's a common thing we're seeing more and more you know agents adopt solutions whether it's a good Lord contract or a property mark one or you know There's several lettings partnerships and providers out there that offer documentation that you can secure No, I think you're absolutely right. I don't think most agents do know. I think there's also a lack of review as well, because I'm reading through ASTs that have got such antiquated clauses in them, including stuff that would now breach Tenant Feezak, for example, because it's just never been removed. We know it's void, we know it's unenforceable. But we won't enforce it. Exactly. So they know it's void, they know it's unenforceable, but they don't take it out. And there is a problem because if it's implied in the contract, even though we know it's not enforceable, it's still there. It's still technically a threat. And tenants know that if they're going forward with something else, so let's say it's a deposit claim or something like that, their solicitor is going to go through that with a fine tooth comb and pick out all the clauses that are unenforceable. And you know, just it's another branch to beat them with, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. If they're minor things, you'll probably be all right. But if they're quite egregious you could get the whole thing thrown out over it. Yeah absolutely. So look Tenon Renter's Rights Act rather. I think you were right the first time. I know. Freudian slip. So Renter's Rights Act so we've now got it you know for all the naysayers who amused me that anyone could think this wasn't going to happen after. I know. Three or four years of quadratations through two different governments. So look, we're here now, we're waiting for the implementation schedule. I mean, I think, you know, what I'm definitely seeing online is more and more people wanting to know more detail now. Absolutely. Right. And I think that is one of my big disappointments at the moment is given how long this has taken to get to this point that government don't seem to have given much thought to what that implementation looks like. And bearing in mind as we know, right, the last few rounds, the Act hasn't really changed much. It was very, very clear with the array of suggestions that were getting proposed and the rate at which they were getting swatted away, that government had very much made a decision like, do you know what? We're pretty much there. It's disappointing that they didn't take the last few months of that stance to go, cool, we don't have to know it all, but let's, let's give people a framework. I mean, I think you got tagged in a post yesterday, I don't know if you did, but I did. And Sophie Lang being asked about a person with their son who's done a student that rent paid I think quarterly in advance or six months in advance per room on a locked fixed term contract and you know understanding is like how do these rent payments go ahead what happens to these rent payments going forward what happens to the contract you know what the terms when this happened blah blah blah and it was you know I think the interesting thing that came out of all the comments on it is like no one knows you want answers that that no one can give you yet. But all we can say is until you get more answers, you just follow the term to the signed contract. And ultimately they're not, I mean, in her case, they're not gonna become more egregious than they are. 'Cause she's obviously looking at it from a tenant's perspective. So I was like, at worst, the rent schedule will stay at what you've agreed to, but it might switch to monthly payments. Same financial commitment, ultimately. And you can still, my understanding is that as a tenant you could still choose to put in advance. You just can't be required to. And there's also, we're still waiting for clarity over whether that's just for the first month or you know, there's still some vagueness around the rent in advance protections. And again, contract, they've locked into a fixed 12 month contract and it's like, well, the likelihood is you won't be held to that because-- - We can't be. - It's gonna become a periodic. your three months will be from when you occupied the property whenever that was. And by the time the act comes in, you'll be well out of that. So you'll be into your two month notice period window. Yeah. But yeah, I think that's the frustrating thing now. So we were chatting before, you are dashing here, there and everywhere. Yes. On the countryside, primarily talking to agents. Yes. about all things Renters Rights. Yeah, so like I was saying to you earlier, I don't think I'm actually at home at any point in November. I'm literally hotel hopping from one end of the country to the other, working with agents, in-house training. I've been surprised, and I would say pleasantly surprised, how many agents want in-house training rather than over Zoom or something like that. I thought more would have opted for that, but I think managers and directors are now realising that in house, you've got more attention, whereas if you're on Zoom sometimes you can't really ignore someone when you're sat in a room, right? You can't phase out and start daydreaming about XYZ. Yeah, exactly. So I think they're realising that the in house training gets more attention. And it's been really interesting to see the level and degree of existing knowledge. So there are some agents where I'm walking in there and they literally just know the name of the act and that's it. There are some that have tried their best to educate themselves and there's just some tweaking that I need to do. But the most important thing that I think a lot of agents are not really getting their head around is they are gonna have to fundamentally change their business model. - Yeah, revenue. - And I think this is something people haven't quite understood because there is so much changing that we've just said, tenancies going periodic and things like that. The standard, let only rent collection and fully managed isn't going to be the way forward in the new world. Full managed, yes, absolutely. - Yeah, fully managed won't fundamentally change that. And I'm not sure that rent collect will, but a lot of the industry, two thirds of the PRS is let only. You know, that's the stark contrast, right? only about 36% of PRS homes are managed. Whereas, yeah, you know, the other two thirds are either completely self-led or managed by landlords or are let only by agents. And I think I'm right in saying that for agents is pretty much kind of 50/50. The market that uses agents about half. - Yeah. - Yeah. And so for those big lump sum fees, You know, as an industry, letting's is typically operated on that. Cool, we finalized a left, boom, there's our invoice for the vast majority of the revenue we're gonna make on this deal. Now, the question is, if you can no longer guarantee a landlord more than three months' occupancy, are your landlords gonna be happy paying a year's fee when they get no security of tenancy after three months? I don't know, maybe. Are you wrapping that, you know, is there some undertaking with that? So, you know, we charge you a year's fee, but we will re-let it however many times we need to in that year, or we will do one free re-let as part of that fee structure, that fee basis, 'cause we know most of the compliance will carry over in that 12 months. So you should be pretty good anyway. So then it's the facilitation. I mean one interesting thing, I think change of tenants is going to go. You know we've talked about this in the office and I think, I don't think there is any agent or landlord in the land that will bemoan a change of tenant process going. Because I think as we all know and what the government totally failed to grasp with the tenant fee ban, is that rather than that being easier than a let for it is almost always harder and more work. I'll also say we've had, at base, we've had two very unusual for us, there are only disputes this year, we've had two disputes go to TDS relating to liabilities where we've facilitated a change of tenant. And because it's a change of tenant, TDS have sided on one case almost entirely and in the other case entirely with the tenants. We've contested this, we've done an audit. We genuinely don't know what we could have done to document that differently or better. 'Cause the fundamental kind of pushback we got was, oh yes, you did another report at the changeover, but there's people living there and there's personal effects. So we don't see the property at a moving standard. We don't know what's the talents effects, what's the landlords, 'cause I think with particularly with one of the disputes they'd left at Tana stuff they've just abandoned and then the landlord had to pick up a 450 quid clearance bill you know. But I've actually asked TDS if they can if they can give more official guidance on a change of tenant because I want to know what we could have done differently to protect our landlord because in both of those situations we feel that the landlord has absolutely lost out on fair and reasonable proposals. But to me that sounds less like what you could have done more and more to do with TDS's processes just don't incorporate a change of tenancy in that way. Oh for sure and look we we contested it and full credit to TDS they did do a full audit of both cases they did a deep dive, they came back to us with their rationale, their findings. I don't agree with much of it, but full credit to them. We did get that. And I think that's where, you know, obviously we've got base, but I'm obviously with depository, we're a partner with TDS. So, you know, I do think that helped. And for depository, I also wanted to have a better understanding of that process. But I think that coupled with, like I said, as we all know, a change of tenant, our team, every time we get a request for a change of tenant, our team shudders because they know it is considerably more work than doing a new lab. Absolutely. And stress and everything else. And so, you know, these couple of recent findings combined with the structuring of the new tenancies under the Renters' Rights Act, you know, we've pretty much said as a company, we won't be doing change of tenant anymore. Well, they won't be the opportunity, will they? Well, you're not locked into a contract, right? Exactly. So there's no longer this thing of a landlord and their agent having to be reasonable. Exactly. because you're not tied into an unreasonable contract term. - Exactly, so tenant can give two months notice at any point, obviously. - After the last month, but in theory, we can give three, yeah. - But ultimately, that ends the tenancy for everybody 'cause it's one out all out. So there isn't going to be an opportunity to just early termination and replace. 'Cause that's now off the table completely 'cause there's nothing to early terminate. What are those other remaining tenants do? And for us, we would rather facilitate a fresh let, potentially resetting the rent, which will typically mean, in most cases, that rent might creep up, or make a substantial leap, who knows. You get to reset all of that, reset the period, everything. And like I said, at the moment, we're not legally allowed to charge more than 50 quid for that process, and it's more stressful, Whereas okay, we won't charge a 50 quid change of tenant fee to the tenant whoopie do, but what we will do is we will have our really nice neat end of tenancy new tenancy process that is much less work. And yes, we probably already charged that plan. I mean, we work on a different fee structure. We pivoted most of our landlords to a monthly fee quite a few years ago. And actually we did that, no savant action going on there. It wasn't some genius moment of I know where the market's going. We did it largely because fluxes of income. Like most agents, we have that busy summer period. We would sign 65, 70% of our tenancy agreements between kind of middle of July and beginning of October. So we would produce 65, 70% of our annual income in a two month window and you've then got all the fund of budgeting for the rest of the year, quarterly tax returns and stuff came in and it just, for all of that, it was just like, well hold on our overheads don't change each month. So really we want to stabilise our revenue. That was our thinking of why we brought it in and lo and behold, you know, it's put us hopefully. In that respect, the transition for us for the Renters' Rights Act is really easy because it's guys, it's more of the same. You know, we talked about, do we need to have a minimum fee in there? Do we need to have a caveat in there? You know, do we need to protect ourselves from too many transitions, too many turnovers. And I think where we've landed on that, and again, I come back to the fact that we are fortunate to work in the London market with high rents and high fees. So, you know, but I think, you know, our mindset is that, you know, our average tenant stays for about four years. I don't dramatically think that's going to change. I don't think we're we're going to see that get much longer. I do think we will see it get slightly earlier, just because I think in renting, I think four years is quite a long time to stay when you factor in all the reasons why you might move, falling in and out of love, or whether that's a flatmate or a partner, work, life, you know, all those mitigating circumstances that are fundamentally outside of your control. But I think, you know, most people can sort of point where like you know oh it's time to make that next move or they just want a change of scene so I don't think four years is going to expand but I equally don't think we're going to see ten bouncing around because moving stressful moving's expensive. Plus you've got to go through the whole referencing process whereas if you were just kind of needed a short let something like Air B&B is such a smooth the process to go through for a short period of time rather than having to go through the whole lettings rigmarole just for a short that might be cut of underquid cheaper or something. - Now, interestingly, bring up short let's. I am intrigued whether we will see what I class as kind of the midterm market, the three, four month company let's, which at the moment are stuck in Airbnb service department's hotels. I now wonder, will we see part of that market into the PRS market because as we know you know you only have to look online particularly if you go on one of the portals and you've got someone like for example Foxton's where they will often list the property for long and short term rent and you can see cold hard what that difference in rent is and it is usually at least an up-list of 50% on the long term right now they say yes you'll have to go through the referencing, but you'll no longer have to make that long-term commitment. You can obviously say, "Yeah, of course, I plan on being here for years. I don't ever want to move again." Safe in the knowledge that you've just signed a three-month contract, that you're coming over here to do a three-month consultancy, you're going to smash it out, and oh my God, I can rent a long-term home for half the price of Airbnb or a third of the price of a hotel. Now my only concern is will we see that creep and with PRS already under pressure from lack of social housing and everything else is that going to be another kind of, what's the word I'm looking for, another kind of almost parasite. I don't want to necessarily give it such negative connotations but is this another thing that's gonna eke away at the supply of PRS homes for unintended consequences? Possibly, but at the same time from a landlord's perspective that may not be such a bad thing because if it's not someone's main and principal home then it takes them outside the act anyway. But how will you know that? And that's my only problem is that, like how will you establish that? Well this is the thing right, because you have to do proof of address which could be Geneva or wherever and it's like well yeah where I live now I'm moving over here like you know you don't you don't see now again you have to go through referencing so if they have to provide a fixed-term contract to three months then you could argue we'll hold on a minute what happens a month for but then you get into the gray area of are you discriminating because that buzzer you go oh well it's a three month contract initially yeah which is very common again that could go on they're not obliged to make a commitment of more than You know, so I suppose the way around that is probably for landlords to rent properties that are unfurnished because nobody's going to want to furnish for three months. So this was this was the conversation we had in the office and I think that's going to be interesting to see. I mean we've definitely over the last kind of 10 years or so I think we've seen properties definitely become less furnished. I mean we push for it with our landlords. you know, we're like, look, focus on the big ticket items, the beds, the sofas, the dining table and chairs, the expensive stuff. And actually, why not spend a little bit more, get something a bit nicer, a bit more design-led, and then leave all the encoutrements to your tenant? 'Cause also, I think, you know, I've rented now for, woo, too long, 27 years I've rented in London for. And in the home we're in now, everything is us. Artwork, shelves, sofas, coffee tables, rugs, you name it. I think there's a chest of drawers that belongs to the landlord, and I think that's it. And for us, that's how you make it home, right? And in Europe, this is very common. You know, Europe is more akin to our commercial lab market. And coming back to the point you made earlier about periodic tenancies and removal section 21 not necessarily being the big win for tenants that it is. I mean, without even touching on this mysterious landlord that evicts tenants for no reason. - I know, wakes up on a Monday morning and goes, "Do you know what?" - You know. - What a great idea, aren't you? - I still want any of these organizations to introduce me to these mysterious landlords who just kick a tenant out on a whim. - And nothing else. - 'Cause that makes such good business sense, doesn't it? - Yeah, 'cause that's what happens. But, sorry, I've sidetracked myself there, where we go, oh yeah, so, no, balls, I've totally lost my train of thought there. - The unfurnished and the European market. - Yes, that's right, sorry. So, you were talking about security of contracts. In Europe, it's more like our commercial markets, where you will take a longer let, you get longer security, but actually the undertaking by the landlord is a lot less. Yes. Like we guarantee the building, the building won't fall down on your head and there will be water and some sort of utility supplied to it. Yeah. And you know, and typically there is a functioning toilet and there is a functioning sink. That's pretty much it, much like you get in a commercial space. And then beyond that, it's up to you as a tenant, you can go in, fit your own kitchens, the author and the floor coverings, paint it, furnish it, live in it like we would at least hold owned property here. And then at the end you strip it all out and you hand it back as a shell. There's a lot to argue for that, but the reason I bring that up is when we were talking to MHCLG with all the consultations, I said to them, "Well, look, why don't you introduce something like the Landlord and Tenant Act in commercial property?" property they basically brought this law in to protect commercial tenants who would come into in particular I mean particularly like less deprived areas and were kind of re-energized areas with nice restaurants, coffee shops that would uplift the area everything including commercial rents would go and then the landlord would turn around and go fantastic I can now charge three times the rent I was giving you I want triple the rent you can bugger off and then that tenant would leave and they'd bring in some blue chip company. And so they introduced the Landlord and Tenant Act which basically prevented landlords from doing that. However, as a tenant you can choose to forfeit your rights and protections under the Landlord and Tenant Act. You can sign which is what we've done with the deed on our offices here in Shoreditch. We are now on our fourth or fifth lease. I can't remember, we had to do five year leases. So we're now on our fifth lease here. And actually our latest one is the first time we haven't had to sign an exemption on that. But the first few ones because they were shorter and because Shoreditch was so in the ascendancy when we moved into the area. But that was our choice. You know, if we didn't sign it, we didn't get the property. But equally that was our choice. There were other options. But we chose to forego our protection under that because we wanted this property and we knew we were protected for the term we were signing for. And so my argument with MHCLG was can't we trust that tenants, residential tenants can do the same. And look, I get it. There are concerns that an unscrupulous agent or landlord will pressure a tenant into signing a landlord or tenant act document. always going to be that side of things. But I don't know if that is any different to the fact that that entity is going to be applying pressure on that tenant in some shape or form - Exactly. - regardless of what laws and protections are in place. But, you know, I think it's unfortunate and hopefully maybe this is something that will come down the line as government learns what does and doesn't work in this. But the fact is there are tenants out there, like you've said, largely tied to schools, I'd say is definitely kind of the number one thing. Being able to say, look, my kids just started their five years or three years, whatever it is at school, I want that commitment and I'll make that commitment. I think it's foolish to think that tenants aren't able to, can't secure that if they wanted to. I mean, look, There are questions about that. You could potentially look to move the tendency out into a company-led agreement. It becomes more complicated and more expensive. But you could argue that in the case that we're talking about, that would be justified. As long as you, I think as an agent or landlord, as long as you've documented that interaction and the fact that you were only offering that alternative not to force them out of the Renters' Rights Act and somehow forego their protections, but for them to realize the security that they want. There are complications that as we know, you would have to form a company if you don't already have one, although that's pretty easy to do these days. But yeah, you know, and it's gonna be interesting to see how these workarounds work. That's the other thing, right? There's a lot of scaremongering. But we're kind of getting towards the end. And one thing I realized, what we covered right at the top of the subject, we didn't really see that through to the end. So we talked about your discovery working with citizens of the vice bureau, this immense what was it, 1.7 billion pounds of funds that are there to assist tenants facing hardship, render is whatever. And again, your approach to resolve the issue rather than terminate the tenancy and evict talents and everything else. And I think that's a fascinating approach to have taken in the market up until this point. But I think, you know, and you and I touched on this before we jumped in front of the cameras is with the Renters Rights Act coming through, the reality is that problem is only going to get bigger, right? So government have made the insane and of all the proposals in the Renters Rights Act, the renteries one is the one that mystifies me entirely because I do not understand how changing two months and two weeks, two months of rears and two weeks notice to three months of rears and four weeks notice aids anyone because if a tenant can't pay their rent, if they need to be evicted or re-housed, why have you just added six to seven weeks of rent arrears to the start of that process? We know the courts are going to continue. The court situation, whether you're talking about property matters or anything, we know the courts are underfunded. We know that's not going to change anytime soon. So that's going to get worse. We've touched on the fact that AI is probably going to see more things progress to litigious circumstances more often. So we're going to see a greater backlog in the courts. And so I think not only does the approach you take, not only do I love that slightly more holistic thing of, let's try and find a solution here, rather than scorch the earth, because obviously if a tenant is arrears, then it's just horrendous and they must be removed. And it's a horrible situation that can't be fixed. - It really isn't. And I think with all of the cases that I've dealt with, there has probably been a handful of tenants that would just won't pay rather than can't pay. It was literally a handful, but they had other regenders for not paying. You know, they wanted that council house or whatever. So there was another agenda. But a lot of the time when they get into rent arrears, it's not their only debt. There'll be other debts that they're in a pickle. - 'Cause they're juggling, right? We, you know. - They're robbing people to pay for. - A lot of us have faced hardships. You juggle, you spread the, you know, you go without paying a credit card bill for a couple of months and then you have to not pay the rent so that they don't repossess your car. - So I think tenants, well, anybody that's in debt will pay the person that shouts the loudest. So if that happens to be a credit card who actually isn't priority debt and could personally just be put in a box for a while, it's about understanding the difference between priority debts and non-priority debts. And I'm not saying that agents and landlords need to turn into debt advisors, I'm not. But if we have a basic understanding of the whole debt process, it's much easier to sign post tenants into the right help. - Well, I think it's understanding, right? And it's understanding why those circumstances have come to bear in the first place. 'Cause like you said, there are those exceptions, they are, there are, there are the problems where they are doing it out of spite, out of playing the game, whatever it is. I'm glad to say in our nearly 21 years, we've only, I think we've had two, we've had two spiteful tenants. Not a lot you can do about them. No, there isn't. And eviction really is the only solution there because there's no working with them. But other tenants who are genuinely can't pay, they're easy to work with as long as they want to engage. Yeah. You know, and it's about having that communication. I know what you said earlier about tenants don't like to have that face to face that phone call. But actually in these situations, those are the best things to have. I think where it's legitimate. Yeah. I think where it's legitimate. I mean, I talked about that more in an overarching kind of day to day interaction basis, you know, but I think in a crisis like being unable to pay your rent, I think whilst it might be scary to the tenant, I think as long as that meeting or phone call comes from a point of how do we fix this? Absolutely, I think that's something that needs to change as a mindset in the industry and I think picking up the phone as a property manager and having to have that conversation with a tenant is just as scary. It is for the tenant to receive it. Because we don't like confrontation and we don't know how that's going to be received. And we know what the default attitude is to most agents, right or wrong. Absolutely. We don't get welcome through the threshold. It's not a "ah fantastic you're calling me again I love you my favorite person". No absolutely and I think agents need to change the mindset that their job would be so much easier if the tenants didn't exist. This seems to still be an underlying issue. - 'Cause when, 'cause you know, any supply and demand market works really well when there's no one demanding what you're supplying. - Exactly, exactly. But there is still some antiquated mindset that, you know, the tenants are the problem. - I would go as far as saying, I think that's the default mindset in the past. - Okay, I'm trying to be kind. - I think, yeah, I think you are being kind, but I think consciously or not, I'm not saying that in every business up and down the country, it is full on toxic. No. I think somewhere it is a casual toxicity. Is those casual, throwaway comments of, "Ugh, tenants." Yeah. Is that default attitude? And like I said, a lot of the rhetoric from agents over the last three years around the the Renters Reform Renters Rights Bill into act has come from this default. Oh my God, tenants are gonna run riot. - Yeah. - You know. And look, even if they wanted to, we're talking about rent arrears, get a rent warranty. You know, not every tenant's gonna qualify for them, but the vast majority will, the vast majority will, because most of them actually, it's got nothing to do with the reference criteria, it's to do with risk. and the insurers pretty much know what that risk is regardless of a pass or fail referencing. So, you know, for between 250 and 500 quid on pretty much any rent level, you can now indemnify a year's income, your costs to repossess the property. And some of them are now going further. I mean, the good Lord of increased there is there is no excess on that. It's payable from the time they sign the contract because of the restructuring of when fees need to be paid and now it has to be paid after you sign the contract, as we know the signing of the contract, you know, officially a tenant could sign and demand keys and you're legally obliged to provide those keys with them even route that first receipt of funds. So good Lord have thought ahead seeing that problem and gone, no we don't, we don't really think this is going to be a problem, you know, that's the reality in the matter. Absolutely. But will guarantee you anyway. And so that's there. And I think, you know, I saw Harry Truman of Andrews, you know, she did a post about this the other day going, could people stop panicking? Because you keep on seeing these things that, oh my god, that's it, the PRS is dead. You know, tenants can now just move in, never pay their moving in monies. It's going to take them a year to move in. And what are landlords going to do, they're ruined! And it was like, yeah but for 350 quid they're not, they're not ruined. Exactly. And 97% of tenants aren't going to do that. No. But then it comes back down to referencing doesn't it? It comes back down to making sure you're doing robust referencing rather than just sort of a quick, that'll do it or pass. I think that's going to help because people don't do the previous landlord, they do the immediate landlord but they don't the previous landlord. And you're never gonna get, as we know, you know landlords shouldn't lie, property managers shouldn't lie, but as we know the problem with referencing is if you have anything from a difficult to a full-on nightmare tenant. You're gonna save them an angel? Of course, because if you tell everyone that they're an absolute nightmare and you categorically shouldn't rent with them, guess what happens? They stay in your property because they can't move wear. You know, it reminds me very, we years ago had an interesting interaction with, I think it was Stella Creasy. Because we, we had to evict tenants section 21. They basically wanted a property they couldn't afford, refused to accept. Like we're just angry at the marketplace because they'd been in the home, we rented them for quite a few years and it was like Prince change. So they refused to move, refused to pay market rates. We ended up having to serve them a section 21 and they then refused to pay their rent once we'd served that but obviously still kept looking and then we had an interesting interaction with Miss Creasy because we got reference request. Now they were legitimately in rent arrears. So we did say look, up until the point where we actually had to serve papers, they were perfectly fine tenants, but we had disclosed the fact that they were in rent arrears now. They got declined for the property. They wrote a letter to their local MP, so to Greasy at the time being like, oh my god, this is so unfair. Look what our agents have done. It was Greasy though, it was a really good idea to to send us a letter berating us for what we'd done to which I asked her if she was instructing us to act fraudulently on behalf of tenants and you know they're in Lies the Conundrum we couldn't disclose that and in the end they did end up being a victim by court of bailiffs but they did find something and we did actually talk to the agent and go look, this is the situation. And they could see, they could see past that and they took a dice roll on it. But yes, you know, to your point, referencing is really important, although, and this is a topic for another day, I had a fascinating chat after one of the Lettings Industry Council meetings earlier this year. I'm not going to disclose who it was, but it was, it was a big referencing business industry and we were talking about many reasons stuff and and as you said I was like it's all about referencing gotta be comp you know comprehensive referencing and we here at base also believe and you can only you can only do this in small businesses corporates can never do this but personal approval yeah like we will vet tenants based on personality as well as what that reference references say like if rude to you from the moment they inquire about a property, that ain't ever going to change. If they're rude to you when they need something from you or want something that you've got, that's not going to improve when they feel like you've let them down or dropped the ball on something. A bad attitude is a bad attitude. Exactly. But the interesting conversation I had was Actually, yeah, referencing, but data. You know, it was like, the fact is, rent arrears sit at approximately X. I think it's about 3.5%. When you look at reference tenants who have passed referencing, I think it still sits at about 0.2, 0.7%. So the difference between a reference and an unreferenced tenants in terms of risk is actually only about 0.8 of a percent. Yes, compounded, it's like a third, but true market terms. And if we're moving into a marketplace where we're having more and more corporate landlords, more and more large scale landlords, we're moving into, are you slowly dying over there? - Yeah, all right. - We're moving into an industry marketplace which is consolidating. - Yeah. - And I think we're gonna continue to see that. I think actually you'll see more and more landlords and businesses go, do you know what? That's all built into our business model. We've factored in renter is a three and a half percent. We've factored in dilapidations of X. We've factored in XYZ because that is how the market trades. - I agree and I'm seeing more and more, I would say professional landlords with the larger portfolios don't even take deposits anymore because that's a bull late they don't need. - Yeah. - So they just don't bother with it and they just suck up any damage or or renter. - And you factor it in. You know you charge, you know, we've seen it with the bill to rents. You charge a little bit more you charge an extra 3% a month from rent, but you know that the dilapidations cost you 2% a year So you've now just added a percent margin to your business and like you said you've got rid of that hassle that friction I'm not for one second advocating everyone's get rid of deposits because that might impact my business But I think I think it's interesting that people people look outside of it and look at overall behavior and take an interesting approach. And I think that is one thing, the corporatization of renting, if done right, as landlords, the corporatization of landlording, I should say. I think the interesting thing with that is, I do think from a tenant perspective, service levels in inverted commas might not necessarily match where they are now. We know corporate businesses ultimately just in any industry can't deliver that level of service and detail that an independent does. But the fact that a cracked mirror or a little carpet burn or whatever it is doesn't become this horrendous, drawn out three month tirade over 400 quid at the end. is just like, eh, don't worry, we've got off cuts. - Yeah. - You know, it's factored in. We know that the next tenant actually won't give a toss as an iron burn in the corner of the room. It's not ideal, but they'll still rent the property. They'll still pay the same rent. And in three years' time, we will get rid of that. - Yeah. - And I think in that respect, you know, tenants will move into a smoother, maybe simpler - You lose that personal touch though, because obviously with the bigger corporates, you are just the number on a spreadsheet rather than maybe having that sort of picking up the phone and speaking to your personal property. - And look, I think that's true, but that's true of everything, right? That's true of, you know, whether you're going to your little corner shop, whether you're going to, you know, your nice little fashion shop rather than top shop or, you know, whatever it is, it's, you know, you'll still have people that will opt or lean towards that. you'll still want people who will want something a bit more refined, a bit more personal, a bit more upmarket. But I actually think particularly for the lower level rental market, if the corporate's come in at that end of the market more, and we'll see, that I think you'll see seismic shift because I think the market's attitude to low revenue rental properties compounds what we've already talked about attitude towards tenants attitude of landlords towards those properties etc etc and I think with this with this greater legislation I think I think that's gonna scare some of those more entry-level landlords out the market and either those will free those homes up for lower income people to buy or those homes will come into a more corporate environment and there like I said they will run those portfolios a very different way they will have their annual budgeting and contractors and everything else mapped out and as long as you haven't gone in there and put a sledgehammer through the wall and literally left a shell. No I agree and I think from you know bringing properties back into the market for first-time buyers. I don't know genuinely how realistic that is because the lenders will have to change their criteria to be able to accommodate that. Oh look, affordability is still a big problem. Yeah, exactly. Affordability is still a big problem. You know, the mortgage market is still broken. I still am bemused that, you know, that for instance me, you know, a person who has rented in London for 27 years, you know, and for the last 10, 12 years, quite a lot of rent. You know, I should be able to really sit in front of any bank and go, "There is nearly 12 years of me paying a substantial amount of money, month in, month out, on time, in fact, early every month. Give me a mortgage for the same amount." Absolutely. And there shouldn't be any other conversation about how much do you earn, How much do you do this? No, I'm showing you for 12 years. I have paid that every freaking month and you have no other benchmark at all for me to prove that I can meet a substantial monthly debt for an extended period of time. I still am bemused that people like me cannot access finance through that process. Credit ladder and stuff, that was a long time ago now. And it hasn't really sadly shifted the needle. - It hasn't, but the problem with credit ladder as well, they weren't linked into all of the banks, they were only linked into certain banks. So I'm with Metro Bank, they weren't linked through to that. So sadly, none of my rent could be paid against my credit rating unless I changed banks, but that's a ball egg in itself. Although I did read in the press last week that Experium are now doing it as a free service. With Experium you can pay for it, I think it's £2 a month at the moment to have your paid credit. Yeah, I use credit that on my mind. I know I paid for their annual premium service where it gets shared with all the financial institutions. But I think that's like 60 quid a year. Now does that, I don't know, do I get 60 quid a year's worth of credit on my account? I don't know. - No, but I'm like you, the amount of rent that I pay, I could comfortably have a mortgage in a much bigger house. - Hmm. - You know, if... - But it's this whole 10% plus your stamp duty thing. - Yeah. - How boring. - Mm-hmm. - And on that bombshell, we've pretty much come to the end of our chit chat. So, I mean, we have wafted and wandered. - Yes, we have. - We've covered a lot. - Yeah. a little bit, but a lot. So look, if you are a letting agent out there and you are trying to wrap your head around the Renters' Rights Act and what that means to your business, this is the lady you want, can do Zoom, but is very happy to live her for-law and partner home alone and travel the country, boozing it in spa hotels all the time, obviously. Premier in, have got hot tubs, haven't they? - Not the ones I've stayed in. - No. But no, if you're trying to figure out from a kind of structure implementation compliance, that is absolutely where Judy's at a forte, Judy will happily sit down and talk to you about fee structures and revenue and how your business is gonna work, but you need to be prepared. You need to have facts, data, and information. You need to understand where your money comes from right now in terms of letting fees, management fees, renewal fees, top ups from different services that you provide your landlords to, whether that's registering a deposit or doing a check-in or whatever it is, you need to understand that and how the act is gonna impact that and how you hope to replace that. You need to understand what your portfolio is. Yes, the kind of golden phrase being banded around the moment is, oh, it's fine, I'll just move all my landals from Leto and Neeta went collect and fully managed. Well, the 36% that use the industry to manage their properties hasn't really changed in the last 20 years. And we've had quite a lot of legislative change in that period of time. So what do you think is going to suddenly make your landlords upgrade a service, or maybe you're looking to offer them an upgraded service for the same fee. But then how are you mitigating that? How are you managing that? How are you gonna staff that, facilitate that? So yes, all things, Renters Rights Act and implementation, talked to Julie. And look, be keen to hear your guys' thoughts on some of the stuff we've talked about today. The servicing of renter rears grants and so on and so forth with a view to helping a tenancy continue. You know, getting beyond that toxic friction point at the start of a rent arrears process and understanding that, you know, typically 99.9% of the time no one, not landlord, not tenant, not you, no one wants that situation so let's find the best and easiest solution for everyone to get out of that and I would argue that most landlords they just want the problem resolved. If the tenant can get that rent arrears settled and get themselves back into a secure position of income, most landlords are going to be happy. What do you think the future of complaints looks like with AI-empowered tenants? It's something I think I want to talk about a bit more, but I think it's something that we all as agents and landlords need to really start thinking about and I think that's something to be cautious about but it's also something to think about as an opportunity and again for agents out there stop being afraid of the renters rights act. It's as letting agents it's great for you if you're a good agent, if you're good at understanding the law, at implementing compliance and regulation, at educating your landlords on everything you do for them. Fundamentally, this just adds more strings to your boat. There's more you're going to be doing to be safeguarding your landlords, helping them navigate it, understand it, rather than freaking out and scaring them about the fact that this is gonna ruin the PRS and then being bemused that a third of your landlords either want to disinstruct you or sell. Your dialogue, your message that you put out there, you are the one driving how your clients perceive the market. So if you run around panicking that this is the end of the PRS, guess what? Your clients who've come to trust your advice and your insights are going to believe that it's the end of the PRS and are going to act accordingly. Whereas I think for the vast majority of us, we understand that there's a massive amount of change. It's going to be one of the biggest changes that our industry has ever seen, but I also still think fundamentally the PRS and how it works is fundamentally not going to change at all. because most landlords want to provide a home to a tenant and most tenants want to just pay their rent and have things fixed and be left the hell alone and live in a home. And agents like to facilitate that process. And regardless of all these changes, those key things aren't going to change. So let's start talking about things a bit more positively. Let's keep our landlords on board, engage experts where you need them, think of different ways you can solve problems within your business and yeah, onwards faster, better. But, Richard, Julie, what is the website? - It is literally lettingadviceervice.co.uk. - Boom, could not be simpler. The run seal approach to marketing, much like depository, does what it says on the tin. Julie, darling, always a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming in today. Pretty sure I dominated talking too much in that one, but glad we got you down here. You've known me long enough, you knew that was coming anyway. Guys, more podcasts coming soon. Check in, tell us what you think, tell us what you like, give us your thoughts and ideas. See you soon. Bye!