Beyond Compliance: Nicola Thivessen on Championing Standards and Sanity in Lettings

In this vital and wide-ranging episode of The Viking Chats, Kristjan sits down with Nicola Thivessen, Chairperson on the Zoopla Lettings Advisory Board and one of the UK’s most respected voices on lettings regulation, compliance, and raising standards across the private rented sector (PRS).

With a career that spans frontline agency with some of the UK's biggest brands, Nicola brings a unique, full-spectrum view of how the lettings industry works - and where it’s currently failing to deliver for agents, landlords and tenants alike.

This isn’t just a discussion about rules and red tape. It’s a conversation about real-world reform, practical professionalism, and the need for sanity in an increasingly complex sector.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by legislation, frustrated by licensing, or simply tired of being reactive rather than strategic - this episode is your rallying cry.

🎯 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

✅ The legislation overload - and why agents are struggling
Nicola breaks down the growing pressure agents face under the weight of regulation - from licensing schemes to safety requirements, compliance codes and more. She explains why the system isn’t working for anyone, and why standardisation and education are the key to survival.

✅ The truth about licensing - it’s inconsistent, ineffective, and often misunderstood
We get into the mess of property licensing: how it varies wildly across local authorities, why it creates barriers for good agents, and what needs to change. Nicola shares examples from the frontlines and explains what the industry can do to push for smarter, fairer systems.

✅ The importance of practical, proportionate reform
While change is necessary, Nicola makes it clear that reforms must be realistic. We talk about how unintended consequences (like pushing landlords out or reducing supply) can be avoided through better consultation, clearer guidance and joined-up thinking.

✅ How TLIC is changing the game
Nicola gives a behind-the-scenes look at her work at The Lettings Industry Council (TLIC) - a coalition of agents, suppliers, regulators and stakeholders working to raise standards across the PRS. Their proposals around universal property MOTs, simplified licensing and training pathways could be the future of functional lettings.

✅ Why professionalism must be proactive - not just reactive
Agents can no longer wait for reforms to ‘settle’. Nicola argues that letting businesses must take the lead in improving processes, training teams and embedding standards now - not just to stay compliant, but to stay competitive.

✅ CMP, PI, AML… and all the other acronyms you can’t ignore
We cover key areas of compliance that many agents still misunderstand or underinvest in - including Client Money Protection, Professional Indemnity, and Anti-Money Laundering responsibilities. Nicola offers clear, practical advice on how to get it right.

💬 Why This Episode Matters

The private rented sector is at a breaking point. Tenants are under pressure. Landlords are leaving. Agents are caught in the middle. And the only way through this? Better standards, clearer expectations, and genuine collaboration.

Nicola Thivessen is helping to lead that charge.

With a clear-eyed view of where the sector is now - and where it needs to go - Nicola offers practical hope and hard truths for agents who want to do things better. This episode isn’t just for compliance officers - it’s for anyone who believes letting agencies can (and should) be more respected, more strategic, and more sustainable.

👂 Who Should Tune In?

• Letting agents navigating increasing regulation
• Directors and branch managers building future-ready operations

Transcript

Hello everybody and welcome to the latest episode of The Viking Chats and I am delighted to be joined today by someone I consider a good friend, Nicola Thieveson. Nicola, tell us a little bit. For those who don't know you, because I'm quite chuffed about the fact that you don't often get seen on things like this. So whilst there will be some out there in the know going, "Ah, nice to see Nicola on stuff." For those out there who don't know who you are. Let's hear a little bit of your battery. - Well, I'm probably a bit of a social media recluse, actually. I need to be better at social media, but we met, didn't we? Well, we were just saying, weren't we? Nine, 10 years ago. Very kindly through the TDS at an event, and then actually really got to know each other, working together closely at the Lettings Industry Council, which is chaired by the amazing Theresa Wallace. - And obviously more recently on the Zypler. - And then more recently on the Zypler. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, I mean, what haven't we spoken about in the last decade, Christian? - So let's just talk a little bit first. So how long have you been in and around agency now, roughly? - So it's coming up to 20 years, actually. It must be now 18 years without doing the maths and always worked within the sort of governance, compliance field, lettings, operations, tenants services. So started off working in a subsidiary of Countrywide and that was early 2000s, that would have been. And my career first started in renewals, which is where I really got to know lettings. And actually anyone who's worked in renewals knows that you really do learn everything because you encounter so much mid-tenancy, it's unreal. And then through there, developed my career into compliance. I moved to Chesterton's where I was their compliance director and we sort of built and grew the compliance division and then more recently, KFH, where I was responsible for letting's operations. - And how long were you at KFH for? - KFH six years. - Six years. So I think when we met, you would have been at Chesterton's. - Yes. - So I think when we met, we hadn't even launched the depository yet. - No, it was, yeah, concept, it was a baby. I think when we partnered with TDS and like you said, you were their guest, they kindly invited us along to I think like the president's gala dinner, the baptising, the night. Yeah, we will be very smartly. We were, which is quite standard for you as everyone knows, not my natural habitat, but you know, once in a while. But yeah, no, so we met then and yeah, ended up sat next to each other and got on, talking about the wonderful, sexy land of tenancy, letting compliance and renewals. And then obviously from there, then having met each other, then we kind of got to know each other better, like you said, through the TLIC or the Lettings Industry Council. So now the TLIC is one of these kind of slightly weird organizations, isn't it? There'll be people watching this who've actually probably been in Lettings for quite a while who will still be unaware of the TLC's existence. So I remember Eric first telling our dear mutual friend, Eric Walker, who many of you out there will know as well. And we've already agreed I need to try and get him in for a chat on this at some point. - It's our mission I think. - It's definitely, I think that idea. I think if I just bribed him with a good lunch and a bottle of wine afterwards, we should be fine. But yeah, so I remember Eric telling me about it. It was at either like EA Masters or a stadium, the year awards, we were there and I was chatting with him and I remember him going, "Oh, you know what? You should get you into the, the institution council." And I was like, "What is this?" And he's like, "Oh, you know, it's just people in the know, meeting to talk about problems and opportunities and where the industry's going." And yeah, so it's a fascinating thing. Now, was it conceived by Savils? 'Cause they kind of host everyone. They're the generous hosts. - I think Theresa sort of thinking back, she spearheaded it. So it really did start as a small-- - It's not Theresa Wallace, is it? - Theresa Wallace, yes. - Who is in the latest property mark magazine. If you're not sure who Theresa Wallace is, have a little flick through that. Again, fascinating one. - Yeah, absolutely guru, just phenomenal lady. but it was a small group of agents. I think predominantly, I want to say London-based might not have been, and we kept meeting anyway in various situations. It was all around the time of the tenant fee ban coming in or sort of that when that legislation was being muted, it was still a bill. And I think there was realisation that there needed to be a sort of better coming together of agents, and not just agents actually, property professionals, because it's actually far from just an agency group. Exactly, it's suppliers, there are tenant groups as well who are there. - And importantly, we obviously have government, we have kind of MHCLG, usually, or often House of Lords, with Lord Best turning up. - And the focus is best practice. It really is about driving best practice. I mean, one of the projects we've worked on for a long time is trying to spearhead and really drive the property MOT concept. Yn ymgyrch, y cy easily 100 people in the room. - Yeah, and also tons of people online as well. So, I mean, what I would say is, I don't necessarily think there's any primary criteria than when you need to kind of be an established letting agent that aspires to kind of do things professionally. - Absolutely. - But I think other than that, and again, as you alluded to, it might have started as a London thing, but it's definitely not London exclusive. There are agents who travel down from Manchester and even further north to come and be there on the day, and I said, can join online. It's a really interesting one. I mean, obviously with everything we've been through the last three years with the renters reform bill, into the renters rights, and obviously now into the act, lots of debating in there. And to read it because of TLIC was one of the few kind of figureheads that MHCLG really engaged with throughout that process and some of their round tables. I think recently after the act, she was one of the ones along with Ben. That's right. Yeah. She's invited regularly and she sits alongside Property Mark, the National, the NRLA, the National Residential Landlord Association. And she she gives evidence that the parliamentary or group meetings as well. So, yeah, she's fully active. And we often get I love what we get as well through that as well. There's often emails coming down from her and the team being like, oh, governments consulting on this, if you want to say here's the link or governments looking for vendors or buyers or landlords or tenants to fill out this. And so I think one thing we always get frustrated with as agents is, well, call it perception. I'm not sure. It's probably pretty accurate. It's the fact that we don't often get a voice in these things from a government perspective. I think all the renters reform rights act process kind of did a better job than historic. But I think definitely one of the reasons I was really keen to join was making sure that there's smaller independent agents. Definitely. Have a voice in the room. Yeah, it's really important. Really important. You know, because it's great to have your savels and your chestnutons and your KFHs and property ychydig i'r grwp yn ym Friday at the Nakes. Well deserved. Which was, yeah. And it really does just bring all of those individuals together. You've got redress scheme representation, professional body representation, you know, property mark always 10. So it is a fantastic group. And actually what's good is they also have working groups as well. So when there is a lot of activity within the industry, when I say when there is, when there isn't there. There are all ways is at the moment. It's constant. And you know, Theresa will sort of identify the groups that are needed and bring together six, seven, eight sort of individuals from all, you know, different parts of the industry as well to work on certain projects, produce papers for government as well. So, and it is so needed, you know, I think we probably all recognize at the time of the tenant fee ban coming in that we as an industry did not have enough engagement with government. We did from our professional bodies who've always done a brilliant job, but not from the voice of the sort of agents, the inventory clerks, the redress schemes all coming together as one sector. And there's no side between tenant or landlord. It is about driving best practice. That's really what it comes down to. And actually one of the things we've really called for in push for is about better enforcement as well. Well, this is it, right? I mean, I think you and I, you know, you definitely special in in compliance. So it's kind of like, you know, if it's not going to be enforced, why, why do businesses even need a compliance officer and a compliance role if you just kind of, and I think that's, that's sometimes how we feel as an industry, right? And also for landlords, we keep on getting thrown more and more legislation, more and more rules. And obviously we're going through, you know, one of the biggest chains in the last 40, 50 years and these, these sweeping changes coming in with the Renters Rights Act. And again, as we keep harking But there is that feeling that sometimes this feels like kind of purgatory for the good guys. Yes, thank you. If you're good landlords and you're good agents, the ones who are already telling the lie and who always have every intention to be trained and educated on what the latest laws are, making sure that those are implemented and followed and iterated. That's not to say that mistakes can't happen. Of course. We're human and we're businesses. But the aspiration is there. And yet, you know, we keep on seeing more and more come. And I think that, you know, that's why you and I think bonded so much on the Property MOT project. And what I found really fascinating with that is, you know, a lot of that wasn't wasn't fundamentally about the legislation itself. It was just like, can we stop for a minute? And just like, we've got a lot. We've got a lot that means tenants are really, really safe. Yes. It just is said earlier, it needs to be more transparent for tenants so they understand and their rights and protections. - Yes, yeah. - But also enforcement needs to be more unilateral and more-- - Exactly, it's-- - And more effective. - Yeah, exactly, and there's nothing more frustrating than when you invest in the resources, the staff, the training, the practices, the policies, to do it right, do it properly, and for, you know, the whole aim is to keep a tenant safe and to do the right thing. and then witness those out there who claim to be agents, but they're not doing it right, not through accidents happening, but intentionally turning a blind eye, just not being bothered, not making the effort. - And it's exploitation. And what we want to see is that driven out. As we always say, we want a level playing field, we want a reputable sector, which we believe it is. - I mean, it does. And I think that's the other thing, And I think again, a lot of people listening and watching this will agree the trouble we have and I don't think, you know, I think they started with us more than other sectors, but I think this is unilaterally how the news just seems to work nowadays. It's just all doom and gloom. We love our doom and gloom. Everyone loves a dramatic news story. No one wants a good news story. And I think the sad thing is in our industry, when everything goes well, people are just in their home happy. - Yes, exactly. - You know, a tenant is living their life and just feeling safe and sound and well looked after. Landlone gets their rent on time and an agent just kind of does the job as they should. Of course, that's not the most exciting story, is it? So we always get your tenant a shed, slum landlords or your 25 people in a three bed HMO or whatever it is, which unfortunately kind of tarnishes our industry the way it does. Slightly lost where I was going to go on that one. There was definitely a thought of thread there. Yeah, no, that's right. So no, that's what I wanted to mention. So I had a bit of a rant this morning because that article I think was it on Friday about trading standards and their sting operation in the Midlands on CMP, which initially read like this, hey guys, aren't we fabulous? We're enforcing the compliance thing. But I don't know about you. I read that and I was like, sorry, hold on. This was only done, I think, in approximately like the Birmingham area. it was a three year operation, which I don't really get 'cause surely compliance is just constantly ongoing. - Yeah. - They called it a sting operation, which I also found really bizarre, because in my mind, like a sting is all about kind of tricking. - Exactly. - Tricking someone into, you know, incriminating themselves. Whereas the whole point of CMPs is meant to be super transparent. You go on the agents website, Have they got an up-to-date certificate? Cool. Check with the CMP provider that indeed, that is valid and they've got CMP insurance. Kind of job done. Doesn't really feel like a sting operation to me. So whilst it is great to see some enforcement happening with our heads on how we've talked about it and how we drill into compliance at TLIC and at Zoop Blur. I mean, we've spent God knows how many hours over the last few years amongst us debating all the various elements of the renters reform and rights and debating some of the maybe intended or unintended consequences with MHCLG. What do they call themselves as interim? I can't even remember the weird acronym they used before. - Oh, D-Luck, wasn't it, yeah. - D-Luck, yeah. There we go. That one's done and dusted. Oh, that computer in the background turns like it's about to explode. So, yeah, I think I read that and the headline was like, "Hooray, there's some proactive enforcement." But I don't know about you, I kind of read down into that and I was just a bit like, "This shouldn't be this complicated." It shouldn't be. And it all sounded, I mean, again, it's all about the drama for the story, isn't it? It sounds all like there's some sort of undercover work going on or FBI agents want to take around. Like Tom Cruise crashing through your shop window, like. And exactly as you say, CMP rules are really simple. So the first step is look at the websites, as you said. Next step is contact the agents where nothing's displayed. Has it just not shown on their website? Was it hidden? Has it slipped off 'cause they've upgraded their website? - Yeah, was it an accident? - And then the next question is, do you actually have it? If it's not just on the website, that's one level of breach. If you didn't have it, that's another level. Then when that's pointed out, how quickly do you acquire it? that's another level and it doesn't mean that all of those can't be enforced but actually it should be about collaboration, it should be about improving the industry. But CMP was one of those really sensible bits right? Absolutely. It was one of those things like the deposit laws when they came in which were absolutely needed. Yeah, tenants funds should be protected, there's no doubt about it. CMP because we work in a primarily unregulated industry, you know some people find it bewildering that you can set up a company within Lettings and be handling quite quickly millions of pounds because it quickly piles up, particularly if you're in London with the rents that we get. Exactly. Sorry, I said tenants funds. I meant landlords funds, but same thing in terms of your clients funds. Well, yeah, it's your landlords rent. It's your tenants deposit. If you're an insurance deposit scheme member, which we are at base, I think you guys are at KFA. So, but that should be so simple, right? That should be like, it's a really simple piece of legislation. That should be so easy to be like, cool, here's our list of valid policies. - Exactly. - Or even almost start from there, 'cause there's only what two or three providers are CMP to the industry, and all that? - Well, I was just about to say, you surely would engage with the providers first, right? These are the agents we can't find evidence of just visibly online, can you confirm their members fine? We'll just write to them and say, why isn't that online? Get it online, please. You know, job done, problem solved. And then you've got your list of agents who didn't have it. That's your problem area. You know, that's the area that you should be working with, enforcing and dealing with. - We've had quite a few, fairly superficial, but just simple practical stuff. You had that, you had your mandatory ombudsman, membership, obviously we had the tenant fee act and what should and shouldn't be shown on your website. I mean those three to me are pretty like you shouldn't need a task force, right? You shouldn't need like this should really probably be primarily driven by software, right? That's going out, reading websites going, like you said, here's an initial review and this flags this. That then gets passed on to a human who then goes, right, okay, now we cross check it with this and we cross check it with that, for a minor infringement, like not displaying it or having not updated it. - Well, not updating it, exactly. - It's a slap on the wrist. But I say if you're not having it, why do we have these laws? If we're not going to enforce them. Because as we all know, one of the worst bits of press that comes out about the letting agent and property management community is when a business unfortunately, through whatever circumstances goes under, and invariably there is a bit of a black hole in those accounts. And then we see this horrendous commentary online about how bad is it that people are just left with this black hole of rent and deposits missing, the positives often then fall on the landlord as well. So not only are they out of rent. - And they were stories we heard of all the time previously. Now if you hear of that, the first question is where was their CMP? Where was their money protection? And that's the thing, isn't it? It's something that you don't, and it's not a big news story anymore. - No. - And I'd much rather hear about sting operations being around horrendously managed properties you know lack of management, unsafe properties, danger within a property. That's where... Yeah, proper, what we... Absolutely. Coropper road landlord, road agent stuff. Yes, enforce the CMP, of course, do that, but it doesn't need a sting operation, does it? It's a simple task. Use the resource and focus it in the areas where we really do need to see ongoing improvements. And also, if you think about it, right, you know, we just talked about kind of the worst thing that came out of lack of CMP is a business going under. Yeah. Now most businesses have, well, all businesses have to file company accounts. Yeah. So even if you go, right, do you know what? We don't want to patrol the 24,000 UK estate making agents. We just want to know which the problem ones are. So surely just have that initial trigger being late filed returns, substantial losses, you know, and again, probably tells you quite a story, doesn't it? Exactly. It tells you which ones to keep an eye on, right? Because you and I both know, like, ultimately, you can run a good business, you can screw up and forget to renew your CMP. Yeah, of course. Mistakes happen, definitely. None of us want it to happen, but it happens. But fundamentally, bottom line is, as long as the business is fine, it doesn't really become material but if financial distress is the primary underpinning cause of why it's so needed then surely maybe that is the data driven point of focus and then that allows trading standards who as we know are so vastly under resourced and we're always in six or seven people in the estate netting agent team patrolling the entire UK estate netting agent market. It's bonkers, isn't it really when we think about it? Well, you hear about, excuse me, just the London boroughs. You get a variety, don't you? Within borough, in some cases, they'll have three or four enforcement officers. Sometimes they've got a part-time officer responsible for everything. You know, they are just so under resourced and, you know, and that itself is a challenge for them. And, you know, it's something we would love to see be improved and have more funding for because then they can really target the right places. So I mean this kind of brings us on nicely to another point of contention that we all kind of, I think we saw value when they first started but now with so many things moving on is obviously property licence. Yes, I knew that was coming. You teed that up beautifully. And obviously with it having been in the press recently with our politician phone cars which Everyone now knows what a landlord license is, don't they? There's no excuse if you haven't got one because everyone's seen it in the press now. - But the shocking, I mean, one of the shocking things, the revelations that we had, and it was quite timely, that the moment that whole Rachel Reeves thing kicked off with Sothec. We'd had an email from Sothec about 10 days before about a property license application that we'd put in coming back to us. over three years. - Yeah, oh yeah. - We submitted a license application over three years ago and the email had come back to go, oh yeah, it appears almost everything's in place, but this, this and this has expired. Shocker, gas safety being one of those. What I loved was the fact that we were given 14 days to provide all of them, which as you and I both know, an agent or a landlord knows their stuff, they've got that stuff to hand anyway. But 14 days to provide those, all the whole application gets thrown out and the five, six, seven, eight, a hundred quid fee, I can't remember what it was, capped. The hilarious thing since then is the tenants had vacated, the property had been sold, had been bought by homeowners, been refurbished and they now live there. - We have seen so many cases similar to that where it's been two to three years but before the property is inspected, you've had two or three change of tenants in some cases by then. To your point, sometimes it's no longer even eligible for a license anymore, because if it's in an additional area and you've got less than three sharers, you know, straight away it's almost a waste of-- - Is that gonna demographics change, though? - Yeah, exactly. And as you said, I think certainly at the beginning, everyone saw, I think, the value in licensing. I totally support the concept of what it would be to do. concept of how we thought it was going to be implemented, which was kind of around this preface of we kind of know where the bad stuff happens. That was always kind of my understanding was the councils were like we know where the bad stuff is, we just don't have the powers to do with it. And there were some local authorities like Newham is the prime example isn't it, where they did improve housing as a result of licensing and I think they did the right thing at the beginning. You know, absolutely was the thing to do, get more control, set more standards. - But again, they were, you know, they knew they had a massive problem. Everyone knew they had a massive problem with standards. They were given that special exemption first and second time round, 'cause the whole idea behind this obviously was meant to be 20%, the worst 20% of the housing stock was targeted. - Exactly, exactly, yeah. - Anything out that required a special exemption, which we saw with Neum and that made sense and that got granted. The problem we've got now of course is back in December the government made the infinitely wise decision to release, to remove that cap. And so now we're seeing councils across the country, we're seeing it with London, Hackney's done a massive one, Islington are going through one at the moment. I mean, we'll see it across the entire UK. they're all doing this massive audit. The claims made in the proposals, knowing what we know about how those schemes have been run, I mean, I wrote a massive piece on the Hackney licensing proposals and kind of picked apart a lot of what they say. And if you really do feel like geeking out, if you go to our base website, It's a long one and it's quite dry. There's a lot of data in there. But equally, if you're like an agent or a landlord and you feel similarly about local licensing, you might wanna check that out just to kind of take some ideas on how we tackle this. 'Cause I do think, you know, this whole premise of all we're driving up standards, which you know, part of my thing is, if these schemes work so well, all of you are on your second and sometimes now got your eyes on a third term scheme. If they're so effective, why do we still need them? Because surely in theory, that five-year scheme should-- - All those copies. - Quite resolve the problem. Maybe the second one, but yeah. And then the preface, the other preface of we're here to protect our residents and make sure that they're completely safe and completely safe home and you're a legitimate entity whether you're an agent or landlord. how you can make those claims safe in the knowledge that you're going to take one, two, three years. Yeah. I'd say the South Africa application thing like totally blue are mine. This is an office because I mean we deal a lot with Tower Hamlets and I would say with Tower Hamlets it's common that we see it around a year-ish. Some between six to 12 months that's rare but we see quite a few trickle over into that year and we're already like - We had quite a few, yeah, two years, there was one borough where two years was the average time it took for them to do the inspection in order to grant the licence for an additional licence. And you just think so much has happened in that two years in a tenancy or, you know, like I say, change of tenancy. But I think the other part which makes it so complicated now is of course every borough has its own set of conditions. So, especially if we use London as the example but you know this can apply to places like Manchester as well where I think they've got ten different sort of yeah exactly and but you know here we're we're talking you know I don't know the exact number it's at least 30 isn't it? Yeah it's 32. Yeah and and you know you've got each borough with its own set of unique conditions some yes of course they're standardized and then you see these weird and wonderful ones come through that in cases don't make any sense. Well and also they're not written into law. No, not at all. We've had councils come to us going, oh you've provided X, Y, Z but you haven't provided this. It's like, because it's not a legal requirement. Oh but we want it. It's like, but it's not a legal requirement. Exactly. I mean there's been times where we've been like, do you know what? Well we've seen, you know, councils put in things like only the licence holder can collect the rent. Well if the licence holder is the landlord in some cases but the agent is managing and collecting the rent, why does the agent need to become the license holder? They can sign a declaration to take ownership of responsibilities of conditions and it goes totally against what the housing act itself says within it, you know, and it's so contradictory in its own way and you sort of, you know, when you're dealing with these weird and wonderful that vary across 32 different boroughs, let's say I think now at least 28 of them have schemes that are not just the mandatory one. It's just absolutely impossible for agents to constantly keep track without plowing in tons of resource. Well this is the other thing right because and because the councils do their own thing they can't pull resources. No. This is the other madness right? Exactly. All 32 London boroughs could have just gone do you know what guys that's just agree this is the London framework. They could have done it under the GLA. They could have done exactly, under the GLA, a central enforcement and processing, you know, and just agreed however to attribute the funds, you know, take out the costs and then attribute it whatever. But they all would have benefited from it, you know, obviously there is a financial gain to running a licensing scheme and they could have all still received funds to run those schemes, but had they have had at least a central set of conditions, principles, and then yes, if some need to be tweaked because the uniqueness of an area fine, but that's one or two changes. And that is a legitimate task force thing. Exactly. That's like that kind. Not an entirely unique set of conditions that vary wildly to another. And if you're a portfolio landlord with one property and one borough, one in another, one in another, that is just utterly confusing and then you're almost hindering them from being compliant. Well there was a really interesting piece as well and I'm trying to remember what the website's called. It's a property review site for tenants. I'm trying to remember what it's called. Oh, Marks out of Tentancy. Oh yeah. So they did a really, I can't remember if they wrote the piece or they were asked to come up with the piece but they basically did an article a few months ago, probably about six months ago now, where they kind of destroyed this messaging from a lot of the councils going, "Oh, we don't really know where the problems are. We kind of know." And they wrote a really fascinating piece because they basically called BS on that and they were like, "Look, if your priorities are overcrowding, you know, licensed HMOs or even licensed HMOs where they just slammed more people in there. They showed very clearly and very easily how councils can identify that through energy usage at the property and also like data that they can see about bills and things registered with the property and all this sort of stuff. It was just a really, really fascinating piece because I saw it as, I mean, they do have a stake in it in that, you know, they're trying to play their part in driving up standards and giving tenants a voice of going, "Well, yes, you can review your agent and you can post a Google review or whatever, but who actually really reviews properties?" So they're doing their pit, but I thought it was really interesting to to see an organisation like them call it out and be like, actually, there's three or four data sets that you've got easy access, they're free or cheap, and they're really easy to implement to give you kind of a heap. And if you then couple that with crime data and statistics from your local police forces, you can see where the areas of antisocial behaviour are, you know, and whether it's issues with behaviour, drugs, you know, whatever it might be, it's everyone knows where those areas are because the police will have that data and so all of that could have been utilised in a much more strategic way to genuinely identify the hot spots, ensure safety in those areas and instead what you've got now because the legislation keeps changing or the permissions keeps widening, you've got boroughs who have phase one of a selective scheme starting in 2022, phase two starting in 2023, phase three starting in 2025 and you know it is so if you're an agent operating in that borough it's confusing. If you're a landlord operating in that borough it is impossible because they are not experts in that legislation. And then you start working across multiple boroughs. Exactly. And it starts getting bewildered. And you're actually not helping them do the right thing. You're making it really, really hard for landlords and agents to do the right thing. And you know, if you are a larger business who can really focus a lot of staff, a lot of time training and invest in managing that, fantastic. But for the independence, that's really difficult, really, really difficult and or even just the smaller agents. and I just find it really unfair because it's not malice, it's not negligence, it's trying to do the right thing. Well, because for us at base, I mean, we've got a small portfolio in terms of the industry, but because we work pretty much London-wide, I mean, we're predominantly in London, but we probably operate in 10 to 15 bubbles. So, like, we're constantly like, well, the latest, what's happening with this? You can't take your eye off it. No, you cannot take your eye off it. Every time we do a let or anything It's like any time we touch a property pretty much. It's like, oh don't know if we checked Yeah, what the latest criteria is like oh look at that. They acquire Notification on the board and you have to go digging and finding yes, and then you do genuinely have to take every license read every condition Determine as well who's got the liability the license holder or the agent? depending on the declarations, if you're signing it, who you're naming, they are really badly worded. Also, the councils themselves don't have the experts at the end of the phone. Oh, that's the brilliant thing. When you call them up and ask, they usually don't have the answer. Or they misinform you. The amount of times we've received incorrect advice and we've gone, "That doesn't sound right." We've gone and verified it and it's absolutely incorrect. There's so many levels and layers to it and then if you want to throw in more complexity you've then got the article four direction as well around planning permission which is again starting now to take off. More and more burrs are actually starting to use that whereas before it was only in a couple of burrs. So again if we're just saying about London there are so many burrs now starting to implement that article four. Which why you know planning departments are swamped at the the best of time. Why do you want a burden? Planning and the housing departments often do not talk to each other. So, you know, I've seen a case. Fortunately, it wasn't one of us, but I was very grateful for. But we saw a case through another agent that was contact files who said, so they had had the license granted and that license was granted a good year ago. And then the planning department suddenly popped up and said, sorry, you don't actually have planning permission for a HMO and so it completely left them in a well what do we do we're now in breach of planning but we've got this tenancy going that we don't have a break clause for we can't just end well this is the other thing no kind of recognition and we're going into even a more complex space now right we're going into our open-ended periodic tenancies absolutely that. There has been no framing in that act about what do you do if legislation changes and you can't be compliant. How do you handle a tenant in that situation? Those might be legislative changes that mean you need to make a physical change to the property or you might just want slash need to reinvest into your property to make it better, nicer, safer. Again, there is no mechanism in the clause to do that. So it's gonna be intriguing in time to see how that plays out, where you've got a tenant who wants to stay long term, and you've got a landlord who's like, "Cool, well, you know, I'm happy to go "and put in a new kitchen or whatever, but I can't put in a new kitchen with you living in the property. Exactly. And equally, you know, with the greatest of respect, you know, I'm a tenant myself, you know, depending how much you're spending, but yes, there's that ongoing investment, but something like a new kitchen. I mean, conservatively in London, you're going to be looking at 20, 25 grand for a kitchen and it goes steeply up from there. Especially if you want a robust kitchen with longevity that can withstand potential changes in tenancies, potential share of households and so on, it is not cheap. Well and also you've got the unknowns as well, you try and wrap that in. I mean we've just done a massive project a couple of doors away, you know, and we put new kitchens and bathrooms in there. When we took the kitchen and one of the bathrooms out, what we discovered was a hidden leak that have been going on underneath everything. The bane of our lives leaks. The entire subfloor of the property. So that was fine. It was a vacant property. So that was really easy. You know, I mean say I said easy for us. The client didn't find it easy because it was a surprise. But yeah, you know, if you have agreed with the tenant, oh look, we're going to come in and replace the kitchen whilst you're on holiday. It's going to take seven days and it should be particularly be by the time you come back. And then you come back, you know, you rip it out and through no fault of your own, you discover a leak, asbestos that you didn't know about, whatever it is. And all of a sudden that project becomes more complicated. - We've all got those stories as well, haven't we? Where there's, you know, the leak that's appearing in the hallway, but then there's a bathroom above. Where's the leak originating from? Fine, you reseal the shower or the bathtub. No pit still going. Then something else happens. Then there's damp because of the leak. and you know, it becomes a little bit of a Pandora's box that you open or it kind of works, doesn't it? - I mean, I remember we'd had people a couple of times in that flat, 'cause particularly one of the bedrooms, be like, bedroom smells a bit muscly, and we're like, - Yeah, and it takes time sometimes for leaks. - Like there was no visible sign of it at all. And I remember, a few times we'd been like, "Look, we'll get the carpets, which we've actually seen cleaned, and we had that gone in and redone." And that kind of helped a little bit, but as we all know, they always smell a bit like wet dog, I've been always fine with carpets, maybe even clean. It's a bit like you dry cleaning when you get caught in the rain. It's not the nicest smell. But short of kind of, and again, if you've got a tenon locked into a tenon to go in with a complete control, how are we going to tackle that? And they've got an expectation of time frame as well of, OK, well, that might not be based in any kind of reality. No, exactly. And like we said, even with the best of intentions, one thing we know about properties, he loves taking what your plans are, just going absolutely. Haha! That's what you thought was going to happen, didn't it? So we've got that fun. And then obviously there's another aspect to the property licensing thing, because that kind of, that tried to do some of the stuff we've talked about, which was it tried to make compliance a little bit more transparent for tenants. It over complicated it and that became the issue. It got you know, too, is that true story of too many cooks, you know, with every single borough involved in their own scheme, their own rules as we said. And actually, when you take it back to the basics of what they were trying to do, it aligns very much with our sort of property MOT proposals around have a nice set of standards that everybody knows, make it visible. Understandable. And that was the idea, wasn't it? Here's the license. We're okay. That was the point of it but some licenses are six pages long with full of conditions some and most conditions absolutely right to have on there you know absolutely you know don't block fire exits for example of course not some of the conditions are just well they're just ludicrous they just don't make sense. Yeah I mean we've had some been quite heavy-handed with stuff where like we've had like multi-floor shared property. We don't do HMOs in the idea of renting out individual rooms. No, room shares. No, we don't. We do HMOs as an entire household, typically in AST or it might be an unregulated company agreement or something like that. But typically, all inclusive, I remember we had one recently where they insisted we had to have a smoke and carbon monoxide alarm in every single room. And this is already a flat where it was a mains powered ring fence fully monitored. Like it was already above and beyond. And that's the only thing we've found is it feels like even when you submit a totally compliant property and you're like, these are good properties. This is like our dream landlord. Like if every landlord in the UK could be like this, there would be no problem. And we're a good agent. You submit this application and it feels like they're just trying to find something just to be like, "Oh no, we've done our bit." - My favorite is emergency lighting. I love that one. We see it in so many licenses, often in flats, or in a shared house, as in not roomlets, but you've got three sharers living in a three-bed or semi-detached house. - Like a hotel. Like you're having a hotel. - Exactly, and then they insist in the conditions to have emergency lighting. and you think, but it's a three-bedroom semi-detached house. - It's a house. Like what do you guys do at home when there's a power car? - Exactly. And again, it's just about, they sort of take this one sort of condition and just blanket apply it sometimes without really thinking about what it is they're asking or sometimes they just, they haven't fully actually understood the nature of that HMO because it is often just assumed to be a room-let property. - Oh, I mean, I had an argument with one who didn't fully understand what an EICR was. They got confused between an EICR and a PAP test. - PAP test, yeah. - And we had, they got quite aggressive with us about it. To which, you know, we were on the point of going to, you know, we're just, 'cause the landlord was like, it's not legally required. I'm not freaking paying for it. And so we just got to this point, we were like, okay, we're probably just gonna have to pay for these ourselves. just because this is just breaking. - Just why, yeah. - But the hilarious thing was, I mean, thank God, I was like, we brought it to a head. It was like, can you just please send me the legislation you're quoting? Just send me and they were like, here it is on the GUB site. And it was the EICL stuff. And it was like, right, you know, and thankfully we got them to back down. But like you said, knowledge, understanding, training, resource. - And I definitely would say one of the things we've learned a long time is never, if you feel if your gut is telling you it's wrong, what you've been told by the counselor is wrong, question it, speak to somebody else, escalate it. Don't ignore it because that's the worst thing you could do. Never ignore it. - And don't be too, and don't go back into aggressive. - Exactly, yeah. Don't get into battle either. But actually the best thing you can do is go and ask the questions, query it, ask them. - We understood. - Exactly. - XYZ. - Yeah, and quite often, we've done that many times Because like all of our organisations, a lot of people working there as well, especially when they launch a new scheme in a council, they hire in new people to handle the extra applications and they are not housing experts. And they've been trained very quickly to go and just process these licences, but they will be answering some of these inquiries. And I think a lot of the time people do get to know their contacts in the council who they can reach out to. And that's also the best thing to do is find your expert in the council. We've had quite a few overreaches where they've come at us really aggressively about stuff. And it does come across, well I don't know if it's intended but they do come across very aggressive. I think all us good agents, no one wants to get licensing wrong. You don't want to. So any time you get questioned about a license you automatically go, oh no, you know, and then when you look into it you go, no, we are good at fine. We've done exactly what we should have done. Exactly that. can be quite daunting, it can be scary. But then I've also seen on the other side where we've had to really convince clients that this is serious. You know, they just don't, you know, especially when it's a new scheme in a new area, they say, well, what, this is all nonsense. I'm going to write to the council and you'd have to explain this. The scheme is there. It's set in law. Please don't delay. Get your license in, you know, and it is, it's the whole education piece and it's still a relatively new thing. And I think in London we're quite lucky because the licensing costs fundamentally compared to the rent. Yes. Yeah, you know I mean what the average scheme is ballpark a thousand pounds ish I mean, it's not cheap is it as a landlord when everything is 200 quid a year in the London the trouble is it's the upfront and everything else so it's that it's that kind of cash flow basis, but You know, I think in London we are lucky that a lot of these things as a percentage of revenue generated as income Yes, it's much more affordable He's earning 500 a pound a month and when it's across five years like you say it's and that's when people It's like when you know people first get the cost of their EICR and the remedial works or whatever then when you realize Okay, that's only once every five years you relax a little bit. And hopefully after that first big spend, hopefully not going to be too much. Exactly. But you're right, outside of London, it's a big cost, you know, when you put that as a ratio against the rent received as well. So the one thing also we haven't talked about property licensing, obviously, you know, when property licensing came in 2011, they started rolling it out, I want to think. It was around them, wasn't it? Because it was introduced through the housing at 2004 and then it was... I want to say like 2010-2011 was kind of when it actually started being implemented. It was somewhere around there but a lot of the compliance that we've had layered on top of that since then didn't exist and obviously more recently you know we had HHSRS that really sexy easy acronym kicking was that March, April this year. The revamped. And then obviously now we've got on top of that the Renters' Rights Act with everything that's bringing in with A-Wabs on a decent home standard which okay I think they've delayed now till 2027. Which I don't think was a surprise with A-Wabs because of how long that's taken to come into social which was really where it was needed first anyway. And actually I'm really pleased that they have delayed it in the sense of they are clearly wanting to get it right. They're working on it, they're looking at it, they're not just rushing in legislation that isn't going to work and so let's hope. But with all this framing because the Renters Rights Act does frame a lot of this stuff much more clearly we've got the on the Landlord Ombudsman coming in which is great. Yes I agree. I'd love to see how they're going to police that when they struggle to police an agent of the member ship but maybe that would be tied into the register. I mean with agents I feel like it's easier to hold an agent to account through the redress scheme how they're going to do that with the landlord. I would also have to get that out exactly that's That's exactly my thinking. - Because they're not obliged to have an entity in the UK per se. - Yeah. - You know. - It's going to be interesting, let's say. - But I think my kind of point is, and again, we've talked about this before, do the licensing schemes even really have a place? Oh, but once this stuff, okay. We've got a couple of years of implementation. We're talking about A-Wabs law coming in in the year after next and decent home standard. But once that's all been enacted and implemented and kind of councils have seen out the licensing schemes that they're doing right now, they're either on one now or they're trying to get one out the barn doors as soon as possible. So we're looking at kind of, licensing schemes running up to kind of 2030, 2031-ish. But is there an argument that really property licensing schemes don't really have a place in it anymore with everything else that's coming in? I mean we've talked about this so much haven't we? My worry is that you're just going to have layer upon layer upon layer of legislation, regulations, licence conditions and again the more complicated you make it the harder it is for someone who has good intentions to get it right. And I do think they've missed... No, sorry, someone who wants to get it right, it's harder because of the fact that it's so complicated. And also, you know, there's already so much legislation and regulation. And I think they have missed a trick here in terms of actually bringing it all together. Simplicity works, right? Absolutely. Simplicity works. If you keep it simple, you will achieve the ultimate aim of keeping properties and tenants safe. And actually the more complicated, the more legislation, the more rules, the harder it is to follow. And with nuance. Exactly, exactly. With all the changes, with all the different sort of rules that the council's bringing, the different levels of enforcement, it just will become very, very complicated. And you know, what we are screaming out for as an industry, and it goes right back to what we talked about with the property committee, is a simple set of standards, a baseline, upon which you can build. And instead, we're going to have different rafts of legislation all trying to achieve actually the same thing. And you know, when you think about you've already got the homes for fitness and human habitation, which again, people don't really refer to we don't we never hear about being enforced. But it's there. And again, because they missed a trick with it, it was the concept was absolutely the right thing to do. But and made one uniform set of standards. And instead, everything sits in silo. And then you've got licensing all alongside it, which makes no sense at all. - Which, you know, at the same time, if they'd done it all really simply and really easily, maybe we wouldn't have combined. - I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you now. (laughing) - And I do think, you know, there is the eternal debate of the value agents and property managers bring to the table. - Yeah, very much. - One thing I think is very clear. I think you and I look at what the industry was like when we started. And I say it jokingly, but I remember the kind of first agency we started with, as a landlord, you were lucky if you got some slightly doggiered, possibly like coffee-stained contract that had been sent round, emptying people to actually wet sign. And like a gas safety certificate and maybe something that kind of represented an inventory. And that was-- I think when I think back now, when I started my first job, was just before deposits became a legal requirement to be registered. And then my first-- I don't know if it's first or second year in the job. Suddenly we were getting all these deposits registered. And it was such a new phenomenon and such a new thing. And before that, it was pretty much, have you got a gas safety? That was it. - It was so touching when we look, yes, rents have climbed, but as an industry, our fee model hasn't fundamentally changed this country. - No, no. - Not really, we've got our disruptors and everything else, but-- - No, it hasn't. When I think back to the fees charged then, to the fees charged now, they have not changed. - No. - They haven't changed. And actually, we've grown as an industry, and it's right that we have more regulation than just a gas certificate. - Yes, oh, completely. - You know, absolutely right to have. But it's almost like everyone keeps trying to fix the problem by just layering on more and more legislation. And what needs to happen is some of the other stuff needs to be stripped away and rebuilt into one. We've got, like you said, there's some really good bits and pieces there. Fundamentally, when you look at what's there, we've got legislation that should mean tenants are super safe. Yeah, exactly. They should be renting very good properties super safe and there is a very clear course of action that can be taken against landlords and agents that don't comply in terms of fines and ROs and even property seizure. It gets that extreme. But yeah, and again, you know, that comes back to our thing that we kept working on that, that bang the drum of, look, we've got some really good bits. Let's just make it really clear and digestible and accessible. As we also know, the trouble with that is our housing market is driven and legislation is driven by politics. It is the favourite political football of every party. It is the favourite kind of rotating seat within each political party as well as we know. I think what is it, last 20 years, I think we average like six to eight months as a housing minister in tenure. And that's if you include what a couple of them, one of them did like four years in there. So take them out and I think it averages about five months as a minister. You know, we just want it to work, but as we know, the trouble with that is politicians don't like kind of rewarding successful things people have done before them. They really want to be able to stick their name on something and be like, "I drive that change, that's because of me." I mean, we can see just from the conversations that have been had in the last five, six years of government and the changing governments that housing has always been a big part of that conversation and debate. particularly the private rented sector as well. And we know as you say, it is a political football. There's no doubt it's easy to have the good and the bad sides as such and a problem to solve. - And we're also in that political landscape now where they flagpole everything right now. I mean, we had it with the budget. It's become the kind of political norm again, 10, 15, 20 years ago, a lot of this stuff was kept super secret, like the odd stuff would leak out. - Yes, it was, yeah. But now the amount of stuff that just kind of gets flanked poll to be like, oh, how does our voter base engage with this? Like, oh, we want to tap into the tenant market. How do we, you know, but that doesn't necessarily mean, as we know, you then start floating policies where the title doesn't necessarily actually actually represent. I mean, the whole removal of section 21, you know, you and I, I think, and I think most people are pretty aligned on it. - Such a miss-sell that one, isn't it? This mysterious cabal of landlords and letting agents who are throwing tenants out their properties for absolutely no reason at all other than they can. Landlords who just want to have empty properties sitting there for no good reason. The flag waving that has and will continue to happen around the removal of Section 21. But as you and I know, we've drilled down into the data. we think realistically this legislation is probably going to benefit maybe two percent of the market. Absolutely. I mean we all know that from the reasons why we see section 21 be served. And when you think about it, it's being served because there are renters, well a landlord can still gain possession on that basis. And social behaviour is still the case. Selling, moving back in, they can still gain possession. And the only problem I see it solving is where we have seen particularly as we've seen rents shoot up because of the lack of stock. So let's not get confused as to why it's shooting up. It's shooting up because we have seen a reduction in rental stock. And as a result, some landlords have ended a tenancy in order to achieve the market rent that they then can get from new tenants moving in, because their current tenants have declined to pay the increase. And I'm not saying that's right. You know, I'm not supporting that. but the abolition of section 21 in my view, that's the only problem I see it solving, but it doesn't really does it because as a landlord, you can still put that rent up by market rent. - You can still put it up. - By just serving a section 13 notice. - Exactly. So it hasn't protected the tenants from that. - It's not changed anything. - It's massively complicated to the anti-social behavior thing. - Massively. - Because that is, was always, you know, you look at it in schools, you look at it in communities, it's such a nuanced piece of legislation because what is anti-social behaviour? Well, you know, what remains to be seen now is the threshold of evidence required. And, you know, I think we're going to have to see a few cases go through to understand the degree and inevitably one court will differ to another and so on. But, you know, landlords are going to have have very very clear documents evidence to show why a tenant is behaving anti-social. Yeah just generally I think now throughout. Everything you do whether you're a landlord, a letting agent, a property manager just keeping a record of everything you do. Every conversation you have like you say you know you guys have been misadvised by council people before, you know, again, you need to be tracking that, you need to have that, like, no, no, no, no. - And if I was a landlord, that is what I'd be asking my agent now, you know, how will you be recording these things? How will you be maintaining evidence so that if you're managing my property or even just collecting the rent, but you're the one that people are coming to, how are you going to help me if I come to you later saying I need evidence of those complaints you've received or what do you know about it? Because I think it is going to be a huge part of an agent's role, particularly if you're relying an agent to manage your property. Yeah and that's where you've got to be able to step up right and I think that's you know that's one thing we'll need to wrap this up with because we've had a good chat. Can we have it stopped? Yeah I think it's you know it's one thing we've talked about at base we kind of coined this phrase a few years ago now we call ourselves Alain Nord's first choice second agent because the first agent Alain Nord picks is for a mercurial number of reasons. your mate works there, they've just sold the flat next door, the mini pulls up, the morning you have that conversation with your partner, the flyer comes through the door, there's a special offer, whatever it is, there's kind of a myriad of things if you're not an experienced landlord and you don't really know what the pitfalls are and as we know a lot of landlords enter the game in the the UK being accidental landlords, it's partners property and heritage, they move in with a partner, whatever. So there wasn't this kind of business objective approach to it. And and yeah, you know, it's like I said, we, we, we find landlords often will pick their first agent for whatever reason. And quite often, the wrong reason. And then they will go along for however long it goes because again as we know you can run a very tight ship, you can run a very loose ship, it doesn't necessarily mean that there's big chaos happening 24/7 because again most tenants just want to rent a home, they just want to be left alone to just get on with their lives and just if something breaks have it fixed but as we do know in lettings when things go wrong, they can go really wrong. And with the new legislation coming in now, the increase of fines, the doubling of our ROs, the interlinking of all this legislation, your lockout periods for not being able to re-let or whatever else, it's becoming even more complex and even more scary and then lay it on top of all the new and stuff that we've talked about and everything that we know, we've still got delightful stuff about making tax digital kicking in. In April, we've got the wonderful means that keeps dancing around in the background. I think a lot of landlords are not aware of yet at all, are they? That's something that is suddenly going to pop up and get a lot of attention, I think. I think again, 50 to 50 of the landlords are those are the ones that are oblivious and then they're the ones who've been stung. They've work based on what the government was saying two, three, four years ago. And then the governments moved the gold post and those poor buggers have now lost out. They've invested. I mean, I remember I read an article a while back about a year ago and it was a landlord who didn't. Okay. They had a big portfolio, but they had invested a million pounds in their portfolio, raising the energy standards as much as they could within the announced spend threshold, what the buildings allowed, where they needed to get it to, blah blah blah, and then the government moved the golf post. And so now that million pound investment will not count when this legislation does eventually materialise they will be expected to make probably a similar investment. Is that viable? Is that going to change things for tenants who knows? But anyway. But again, the solution to to that would have been so simple that spend caps should have been allowed to be retrospective for five years let's say and you have to evidence what you've spent it on you have to be able to demonstrate it and you have to demonstrate you've done as much as you can but what the government would have had if they had allowed that would be now properties starting to already be more energy efficient which is the whole aim of it. Exactly because landlords would have been planning and implementing it whereas now you've got landlords going oh hold on a minute I nearly did that and that wouldn't have counted. So I'm not doing anything because the translation cuts. If you think the amount of properties rated D right now that are landlord right now could be changing to become a C rating but they can't and won't because they know it won't apply to the Slenkett and if they can't hit that C they're going to be made to try again. Do it again. Exactly and so they will just sit now and wait. If that cap applied now irrespective of when the deadline is they'd be working on it and as agents we'd be encouraging it. You know, we'd be all out now saying go and do this now. Do not get caught in a bottle now. Spread your spend. Yeah, exactly. Make a plan. Exactly. You know, if you're a portfolio, look at where the worst, you know, worst offenders are. Absolutely. Focus on that. Yeah. Yeah, unfortunately it's, um... Well, yeah, we could put the world to rights. Well, look, you and I, you and I could literally talk all day about the really sexiest of it. I was going to say, this is definitely your sexiest podcast today, isn't it, Chris? (laughing) - It's how we roll, it's how we roll. But there will be people out there, they will absolutely eat this stuff up. 'Cause I think also, there's not a lot of podcasts where often people dive into the kind of detail that we have and the nuance. - There's a reason for that. - I don't think it's also, yeah. Well, we're about to find out that way. But I think it's also good, I think agents often feel they don't feel sometimes fairly, they're not being fairly represented. But I think what's really important to know Like I said, some of the things we've talked about today, letting's industry counsel, you know, whether you want to be involved or not, I think it's really good for agents to know that there is that out there and, you know, working really hard to kind of drive the industry forward, but in a practical, cohesive kind of way. - Absolutely, and it's a voluntary membership, you know. There's no sign up required. - Doesn't cost anything, there is no sign up or anything like that. - And you can be as engaged or as little engaged as you want to be, but also it is, I mean for me it's been phenomenal as a way to actually really, when I say network, it sounds a bit corny, but really engage with the whole sector and get to know people and that helps you hone your knowledge but also know and have the comfort that you're doing things right. And also like you said, you know, I mean I've met some amazing people through that and also not only some fascinating conversations but some people where you're presented with those real like brain breaking situations and you're like, do you know who will have the answer - So and so. - Yeah. - And invariably, they are almost always someone I've met. - And everyone is aiming, they're working towards the same objective, everyone wants the same outcome. And it's actually a great space because you're not, there's no competitive discussion. It's not about the commercials, it's not about any part of your business that you shouldn't be discussing with others. It is purely around best practice in the sector. And it's, yeah, it's fantastic, isn't it? - And then that's some roles of the country. uniquely, obviously the Zoot Blurtings advisory board we sit on. We've done a lot the last few years. Although it wasn't the initial objective, we spent a lot of time with DELAC, SACMH, CLG, doing a lot of briefings when that really kicked off. Really trying to educate them on the unintended consequences of some of the legislation. Exactly. And now the aim is of course to try and take our knowledge and help push it out to the consumers of the sector as well to help them understand because it is difficult. You know, I'll be how landlords operate currently without agents. I don't know in this new world. It's going to be really tough. You know, what we know is required. I mean, landlords, like you said, there is because there's no managed certification or anything like that, there is landlords are so innocently unaware exactly what's involved. - Again, I always bring this back to a conversation I had with a client of ours probably about 10 years ago. As a client, we still look after, and I remember we look after, he has a few properties in London, and I remember catching up with him, and he had, he'd actually approached us a couple of months before to say, oh, I'm buying a couple of houses in Oxford. Would you like to look after them for me? To which we were like, absolutely not. London, London only takes no back. But, you know, this is a great landlord. - Right. - Never squints an eye at spending a penny, whether it's compliance or licensing or improvements, reservicements, whatever. An incredibly intelligent guy. And what was fascinating, we had this chat and I remember him, you know, kind of playfully boasting about, oh, you know, do you know what? I actually, I decided to have a crack myself and I've rented both the houses myself. And it was like, cook, cook, cook, cook, cook, cook. So we like Q, so let's have a chat, you know, and we went through, obviously start off with the basics, the gas safety, the tenancy, the deposit registration, yeah, you've done that. And then you start, have you done EICR? Have you done write to rent checks? Have you done this? Have you done that? And you start laying it on. Have you checked about your legal property? And I remember just a few points in, this wasn't anywhere near the end of the conversation, just a few points in and he went, you do all of that for me on all of our properties. And I was like, do you know, I haven't even got started yet. Like this is just, this is just the pretty decorating. This is the easy stuff. - It's one of those things I think as an agent, because you do it all, it's all in a wrapper. unless you are a really involved landlord, landlords don't necessarily know just how much is involved, or even when they know the list, they don't realize how easy it is to slip up on something or get something wrong or miss something, and it is so easy to do. - Well, I mean, you know, the glorious things like the house of Ant-Kar, I mean, make sure you've got that. I mean, simple stuff, but it's so easy to, yeah. - Barcicle, but anyway. - And also the record keeping, you know, it's sometimes you may have given it to them. Have you got evidence that you did that? How did you prove it? Exactly. You know, that is testing of the alarms. Yeah, joy. All of all of the things that we would keep a record for. How do you prove it? Anyway, look, we can carry on. We better start. But I think do you do you keep an eye out because like you said, we're going to be kind of on a mission, particularly next year. We've done the initial couple of pieces with Zootpila. But we're going to be putting a lot more consumer education pieces out there so we're going to be working really hard to help landlords better understand what is involved with all the minutiae of being a landlord and why letting agents and property managers or rather the right to the right to the right to the right to the right to the right to the right to the right to the right to the right to the right to And again, you know, one of our members on the board is the NRLA, you know, the Landlord Association. And I think we all agree that actually landlords should be thinking about both, you know, they should be members of a professional body, or at least, you know, because we know it's instructing an agent to indemnify. No, exactly. And you should instruct an agent to you really should cover yourself because it is a changing world now. There is so much more at stake. I mean, all you need to think is when do you think is it worth it or the cost of this cost of that 24 months rent repayment order 24 months 40,000 pounds per infringement yeah and the only other thing a bombshell drop onto the back of that is we're also coming to a new era of tenant you know we're dealing in this world of AI right now we're talking about how AI is making companies and all this sort of stuff tenants historically have been as again as we've alluded to because it is so complex quite uninformed or naive about their rights and their protections and the quite substantial framework in place to protect them financially and otherwise in these instances. And I think we're coming into an era, I'm not saying there's going to be an intentional shift by tenants but we're coming into an era where we're all going to have these little AI bots in our phones and our computers going, "Oh, you received this email from your landlord. I've drafted a response." And it will know the law. It will think it will know the law anyway. And it will be saying, "Ah, under article this and under clause this and housing act that you need to do x, y, z." And yeah, you're going to need to be alert because again, you're going to need to be able to be on top of that stuff so you're not getting caught out. You're going to need to be able to read those responses and go oh well actually point one and two you're correct and here's that information but point three that's absolute nonsense use a better AI bar but yeah and you know with landlord registers and ombudsman's and everything else coming up the culpability for landlords I think it just it's escalating. AI is going to help in a sense catch out more breaches there's no doubt about that it will help tenants understand whether it's accurate or not is another thing but it will help them understand if something has gone wrong and it is definitely only going to get harder for landlords and easier for tenants in that respect, no doubt. Well there you go, we've spent an hour or so wandering away with the glorious land of letting legislation and everything else around that. So again just to reiterate something the top touched on today. If you're not familiar with or a member of the Lettings Industry Council, look into it, reach out. I think you can go through the website, but if not, feel free to reach out to Nick or I directly and we'll happily kind of refer you over. Do keep an eye out on the content. We're going to be working with Zucca on next year and pushing out through the board. We've already done a couple about the top five tips for landlords and where letting agents add value. Again, any kind of really big wins that you've seen if you've produced content for your local market and you found you've had a really good landlord buy-in of landlords going oh my god this was this was mind-blowing for us because we had no idea it'd be great to hear about that because anything that really you've seen resonate with landlords and lands we'd really like to know about because we want to educate landlords as to why quality letting agents and property managers is such an essential part of the marketplace. And yeah otherwise we mentioned a couple of people in here today but Nick it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me I've loved it and so can you believe. Enjoy your little Christmas period, we've got a few little parties and bits coming up and then yeah look forward to seeing what you're up to in the new year. - Yeah, it will be in touch definitely. And so thank you very much. - Guys, thank you so much. See you soon. Bye. Bye.