Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Let's Talk lets, an original podcast from the Lettings Hub. Hello and welcome to the latest episode of our podcast, let's Talk Let. I'm Heidi, the CEO of the Lettings Hub, the tenant referencing business that got good at tech. Let's Talk Lets is our regular roundup of news and views on a whole range of subjects spanning the private rented sector. In this session I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by three guests. So it's going to be a busy pod today. That's Stephanie Bilson of Chelton Brown, Tracey Dumont from Harrison Wood and our very own Elliot Loft, our sales and business development director here at the Lettings Hub. The focus for today's podcast is to talk about rent and legal protection. Legal protection, eviction of tenants and its role in an agent's offering today.
Also crucially, when the Renters Rights Bill is implemented later this year, how much more of an important and dominant role it may have.
Let's start with a very quick introduction around the table. So Stephanie, I'm going to come to you first. Welcome.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Hi, I'm Stephanie Bilson. I'm the operations manager for Delt and Brown who are based in the East Midlands.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: Excellent. Lovely to have you here, Stephanie, today. Thank you for your time, Tracey.
[00:01:17] Speaker C: Thank you for having me. It's lovely to be back. My name is Tracey Drumond. I am the director of Harrison Woodlets Settings. We're based in Essex with a couple of offices and I've been in the industry for over 25 years now.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: Excellent. Pure experts on the call. And then over to Elliot the non expert.
[00:01:38] Speaker D: Does that mean.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: Let's hope not.
[00:01:42] Speaker D: So thanks, Heidi. It's nice to be on the pod. So I'm Elliot, I lead up the sales team within tlh. I've been with the business about eight years and I'm excited for my first.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: Pod and you are very welcome also. We will be gentle with you, Elliot, I'm sure.
Now we have recorded a huge amount of different type of podcasts over the last year or so and it's always been brilliant to have so many diverse guests. Stephanie and Tracy, obviously guests of the past, so have liked it so much that they've come back again. But the focus of our podcast over the next few weeks are very much going to turn to the Renters Rights Bill. Changes that are coming in, coming in quicker than I thought any of us probably thought about before and the practical solutions that we can help with, whether we're the Lettings Hub or just industry experts. Actually, some of this shouldn't Be a challenge. It's a massive opportunity. Elliot, for those that are listening that might not be completely familiar with rent and legal protection, can you give us a quick overview of what it is and how it works?
[00:02:50] Speaker D: Yeah, of course. So Rent and Legal protection, it's one of our most popular products at tlh.
Put Put basically is an insurance product which is going to protect landlords if tenants stop paying the rent. So, you know, it's really, really important, especially with what's going on within the industry at the moment, to, to make sure that there is cover in place if things go wrong. So imagine a tenant breaches the tenancy or stops paying the rent. Rlp, as we call it, is there to help cover all legal costs and gain possession of the property.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: Okay. And we have sold rental legal protection from day.in our business. And it's not a new concept. It has survived many different market changes, it survived Covid cost of living crises and everything in between. But we probably now enter the biggest change that's coming through the Renters rights bill. With court times already taking a long time, but expected to get longer, especially if tenants can start to query rent increases and potentially the courts are going to get backlogged with them. In addition that an extra month's rent, near enough needs to be owed before possession can be started. And there is already a stretch in the UK on bailiffs and securing a court date. In fact, I think when we now look at evictions in London, it takes about four months after the court has granted that the tenant should be evicted. So possession should be granted to get a bailiff in and therefore that puts a huge strain on agents and landlords.
And obviously we know it's not a nice process for the tenant, but this is a product to protect landlords in the event of a tenant not paying the rent or any other breach of tenancy that occurs occurs.
So as we look ahead to the implementation of the bill, why do we think, I guess guests, that RLP becomes such a crucial part of an agent's offering, not just necessarily when it comes into force, but the lead up to when it does come into force.
So, Stephanie, can I come to you first, please?
[00:05:06] Speaker B: Yeah. So from our perspective as a business, RLP has been a core offer that we've offered for as long as we've been with yourselves, which is about four or five years now.
And we've got around about 25% of our portfolio already have RLP and it's a huge part of our offering terms of supporting landlords when it comes round to dealing with issue tenants, whether it's to do with rent arrears or a number of other reasons. And I think with the renters reform coming round now, it's going to become even more important because landlords are going to have to give more notice in terms of the period, time period that they can currently issue a section aid on or even they are also going to have to be in more arrears for the mandatory conditions. That's going to be three months instead of two months. So you're already another month down the line when you haven't got an income coming in on the property.
So from a perspective of the actual cost to landlords for the whole process and the impact on landlords in terms of loss of income, the legislation already builds and factors in more obstacles than it currently, currently has.
On the flip side, there are additional, additional grounds and enhanced grounds, which means that more landlords will be able to recover properties for rent arrears than they're currently doing. But that doesn't change the impact on a landlord, particularly smaller landlords that don't have multiple properties and are relying on rent payments to pay mortgages when that rent doesn't come in and having to then cover their mortgage payments for longer before they can get their properties back. I would reflect also that it's not just a London issue around court timings.
We are seeing wait times of three and a half, four months for bailiff dates past court possession. We had an example recently for a landlord that actually didn't have rent and legal protection, where it took almost 15 months from issuing a section to actually being able to take possession of their property back. So they had 15 months of not receiving any rent, plus the cost of actually going through the process in order to get their property back. So RLP is really, really key for us in terms of protecting, protecting landlords from that perspective and offering a really important service.
[00:07:53] Speaker D: I was just going to say, I definitely echo that. We had an internal meeting yesterday. One of our team raised that in quite a large city in the uk, there is one bailiff trying to manage the whole, the whole of that area, which is obviously going to cause big, big problems just in terms of some of the stats that we're seeing. So nine months is the average time it's taken to gain possession in the uk. So if you're, if you're a landlord, can you afford to do about the rent for that period of time?
We, as a team, and certainly when we're out speaking to agents across the country, we're definitely hammering home that it's best practice to make sure your landlords are fully aware of all of the risks involved.
And obviously if you look at the cost of a rent and legal policy and insuring against the risk of something going wrong, that cost is relatively low compared to the cost it's going to take to get a tenant out. Miss rent for maybe 9, 10, 11 months, pay all the legal costs involved.
To me, I'm not a landlord, but if I was, it would be a no brainer. And I guess to summarize, we'd always ask the question, if things go wrong, can your landlord afford to not receive rent for many, many months while also having to pay substantial legal costs? And I think the answer for a lot, a lot, a lot of landlords is no.
[00:09:10] Speaker A: Yeah, and I think you're totally right. And I'm Stephanie, I'm going to ask you another question in a minute. But back in the olden days, I would say, and it feels like a long while ago now, we used to say a landlord needed to have three months rent kind of kept to one side just in case something went wrong or the tenant stopped paying because of mortgage payments, as you both allude to now. That's a really scary number. With the rents as high as they are and the courts as backlogged as they are, you are talking 6, 9, 10, you know, potentially as you said 15 months, which is so scary in terms of do they have that amount of money? And actually for the protection of £200 ish over a year, £300, £400, whatever it is, you know, it's not a lot of money to protect a huge asset for them.
Can I just ask a question, Stephanie? You mentioned that about 25% of your landlords have a rent and legal protection policy.
Are you offering it to everybody? And that's how many are kind of self selecting. And do you think that number is going to change?
[00:10:18] Speaker B: We do operate through all of our landlords. We also offer a legal protection only which is included in some of our services. We have a 90% overall take up of both offers and the other 10% are usually because they are not eligible for the COVID for one reason, other historic arrears or whatever, but also because landlords have their own cover and that tends to be the larger portfolios. But yeah, I mean overall 90, I would say probably 96% of our portfolio are covered in one way or another for the legal fees and of that 25% are covered for the rent as well. So you Know, it absolutely is a crucial part of the offering that we offer as an agent and the take up is reasonably high.
We saw a significant increase in take up during the cost of living crisis post Covid the whole gambit of that it kind of died off a little bit again. But we are starting to see it go up again with landlords being more conscious of what's occurring and what's happening.
And so I am expecting that potentially sort of start to increase up again. What we have found is even our portfolio landlords are sort of 20 to 40 property landlords have been starting to take out rent and legal protection. So normally those kind of landlords might sort of go just for the legal because one month rent for one property when you've got 30 isn't that much of an impact. But actually with the amount of time that they've been seeing things taken, they're starting to rethink that and we're doing some more larger portfolio cover at the moment than we have been previously.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: So definitely a shift. So let's kind of bring in Tracey there. Welcome to you properly.
[00:12:20] Speaker C: Hello.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: Let's talk about how it works within Harrison Wood.
[00:12:23] Speaker C: So we currently have around 40% of our landlords with rental legal protection insurance and we actually took the view toward the end of last year to contact with the ones that haven't got it just to, you know, because we wanted to start the conversation about the renters rights bill now because I think there's a lot of fear out there. The fear comes from the not educating yourself about it. And I think, you know, what you can see is with some of the larger companies, you know, the people at the very top will know about it but as things kind of go further down then it gets diluted and because there's fear around the information and change, you know, I don't think the right information is getting out there. So we, we, we've taken, you know, the, the decision, you kind of hit it head on. So we've been calling all of our landlords, we started calling them in January and having the conversation to say, look, this is happening. You know, if your tenants were to pull into rentalers, they, this could be the ramifications of that. And already I think the last, the last week we've had another 10 policies that we've sold. So you know, that's something that we're targeting on. I agree with you Heidi and I've actually used that language, you know, where I think if you're not talking about RLP to landlord, I think you're negligent personally. Because if I were a landlord and it happened to me and then I found out there was a policy that my agent hadn't told me about, imagine how that would feel, you know, So I think, you know, we take a really proactive approach on it. But you know, you know, for the whole of our team, you know, we talk about it all the time and I think, you know, every nowload that we've spoken to so far, as you said, yeah, yeah, let's just do it, you know, that's a no brainer, you know. So, you know, I do anticipate that, you know, that that will increase because, you know, I think one of the bigger things as well is, you know, not even the financial side, but the admin side of it, should we say, you know, because if you're a landlord that has one property to whatever, if all of a sudden your tenants and rental is, you've never been through this before and you know, you then have to, you know, start the court process yourself. Well, it's a minefield. You could get to court and it's thrown out. So, you know, the good thing about using, you know, policy or product like this and having your agent take control of that alongside, you know, the latent sub, it means that they'll get to court and they will get possession. You know, you know, the references. If you're able to buy a product, then it means that, you know, essentially that insurance policy is guaranteed to pay out as well. You know, and I think that is a massive win because ordinarily when you get an insurance product, whatever that's for, you just assume, you know, that, you know, they'll try to get out paying you. And obviously with, with a policy that we have with you guys, you know, it's pretty much guaranteed to pay out. So I think, you know, kind of selling it in that way has really worked for us, you know, and it just takes away the fear.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: The, the product, you know, definitely protects the agent's reputation. Yeah. And you know, letting agents, unfortunately, you know, they don't. There is a higher turnover of staff, you know, in some agencies than, you know, than we want. That requires training constantly, especially when there's so much change in the industry that becomes a big burden. The great thing about being able to outsource it is actually the stats speak for themselves. So English Housing released stats recently and they said it's taking 24 and a half weeks to get possession. Okay. So that's to get to a court date from when the first arrears took took place. When we have, I suppose, a policy in place and when the arrears happen and you can turn to a professional solicitor very, very quickly and they know what they're doing, that period of time is shortened. The length of time it takes us to get possession is not that long. The bailiff bit then becomes a little bit of a problem depending on where you are in the country. Exactly. To Stephanie's point. But actually we save the landlord money by simply having a policy rather than it happening outside of insurance. So that speeds it up. Linked to those statistics, it's estimated at the moment that 5% of tenants are either fallen behind with their rent or are struggling or have fallen behind with their rent in the last or made late payments within the last year.
And so, you know, that is. That's obviously a scary statistic that's rising pretty quickly.
Are you seeing that? Are you seeing a change in rent arrears and challenges?
The other part of the policy is obviously it covers any breach of tenancy. It's not just about the rent, it's about anything that can go wrong.
[00:17:04] Speaker C: Yeah, personally, rent, a raise is not a major issue for us. I'd say probably 1%, if that we have in rental is, I think. I mean, I tend to be the person that deals with that and, you know, I'm kind of zero tolerance where, you know, where you need to be. So it's not a major, major issue for us. We haven't, in all the time that we've, you know, have somebody been open. I think we probably made a handful of claims if that on the policy, you know, but that side, when it, when we have had to do that, it's worked brilliantly and, you know, recently we saved a landlord in excess of £10,000 by having, you know, the policy. So it's not a major issue for us when, when there are issues, though, that it tends to be, you know, a big issue. You know, it's not that someone, you know, may be a couple of weeks late or they've underpaid by £50, is that they're not paying for six months. You know, those are the ones that happened far and few between, you know, in fact, without one in the whole of last year that that happened.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: And.
[00:17:59] Speaker C: But that's one where, if the landlord hadn't had insurance, it would have cost her, you know, over £10,000, you know, in terms of unpaid rent time, court cost, the whole lot, you know, So I think rent is not a huge issue for us, but when it does happen, it can be on the larger scale.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: Yeah. So I'm going to bring Elliot back in here now because obviously with the renters rights bill, there's going to be even more changes and, you know, even more complexities. Do you want to maybe kind of talk through a few of those? That would be great.
[00:18:33] Speaker D: Yeah. I'd also definitely echo what Tracy said about the. The massive benefit of having expert solicitors manage the process for you. I mean, there's. We all know this. There's so many complexities and complications and changing complications, to be fair, as well, with court requirements. That's going to delay the process if you get it wrong.
The massive benefit of rental legal policy has been able to pass over to specialist solicitors. So one of the big successes we've seen on our policy is our mediation service, whereby 27% of claims that we receive are successfully resolved by mediation. So it's that the massive benefit. There is a really quick solution for those 27% of claims.
If you do need to evict tenants, obviously having a specialist solicitor to take those appropriate steps straight away is really, really important. And in an ideal world, you would resolve quickly without going to court.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And we know at the moment, If a Section 21 could be used, it's going to be used because it's kind of the path of least resistance in the new world. That obviously is not an option and therefore every eviction is going to be. Have to be more evidence based, more conflicting, I would think, with the parties involved, because you've never got to state the reasons why you want to get the tenant out very clearly. And also there was going to require representation in. In every court, which is obviously very different at the moment. So how do you feel about what the future holds, I guess, Tracy, in terms of from where we are now to where it's going to be when the new legislation comes into effect?
[00:20:21] Speaker C: I think, you know, I think it's. It's doubly important to have insurance in, you know, because of that, because, you know, we're the best one in the world. As I said, I've worked in the industry for many, many years, but I'm not a legal expert, you know, I know a lot about the industry, you know, I know, you know, I know a lot about certain scenarios, but I'm not a legal expert, you know, I've never trained in that way. I don't claim to be, you know, and I will not have all the answers, you know, that's just never going to happen, you know, and, you know, I Think if you don't have something in place then, then I would imagine things will be very, very difficult, you know, because, you know, if you don't have the answers yourself, you don't have, you know, the backup of some kind of policy, you know, like that. I think, you know, things will, will be quite difficult. And I think you'll also be misadvising your clients, you know, and when you misadvise clients and there could be issues in terms of possession that, you know, that can have a knock on effect, you know, in terms of, you know, the finances and possession, etc. For them. So I think, you know, we have to protect ourselves as an agent. We have to protect our businesses. We have to make sure that we're protecting our clients, you know, and, you know, and our tenants alongside that as well, you know, and I think we have to be really mindful of the fact that as I said, we don't know everything. We're not supposed to know everything. So we need to then make sure that we have the right support system around us. And for me, that is working with a policy like this because it means that, you know, if there is an issue, then we have the right tools in place, you know, to protect our clients. And that I think we have to be really, really transparent and I think we have to make sure that we're making, you know, our landlords aware that, you know, if, if, if this were to happen, these are the knock on effects. You know, possession will take, you know, way longer than it used to be. You could lose even more money as a result of that. We have to paint that picture for them so they've got all the information at hand so that they are making the right decisions.
[00:22:11] Speaker D: Tracey says, like the bottom line of the renters rights bill is it's going to be harder than ever to evict problematic tenants. That's the bottom line. So that means court delays are going to be even higher.
Sorry, even longer. And one stat that we've pulled is 15% of landlords do not know their obligations under RLB. This is going to obviously lead to like increased defended action that's going to extend court times even further. So yeah, you know, if we think court times and delays are bad now, I think it's only going to get worse.
[00:22:41] Speaker C: I think that's a really good point. You know, a lot of landlords won't be aware of this. You know, a lot of agents that, you know, may not have backing or, you know, may not part of our, or whatever that may Be will not know all the information surrounding this. And you know, because, you know, sensation lies in the press, you know, people then tend to lead with fear so they won't be finding out the right information. They'll just, you know, Google it. And then, you know, you, you go into this rabbit hole of information, you know, so there will be a lot of landlords and a lot of agents that are not educated about this correctly. But unfortunately in the eyes of the law, ignorance, isn't it, you know, an excuse? You can't turn up a court and say, well you know, I'm sorry Mr. Judge, I didn't know that. Well, that that just won't wash, you know. So I think, you know, making sure that you are, you know, you are hitting head on and that you're taking the time to educate your people, you know, and your staff and all of you, I think that is absolutely crucial right now.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: So Stephanie, are landlords, do, do, do landlords know about the upcoming bill? Are you doing things to educate them and are they becoming more and more aware now based on the fact that it is getting so much pressure?
[00:23:51] Speaker B: I think they are, yes. I think increasingly we're getting. Well the first knock on impact was a lot of landlords just wanted to sell and get out.
We have seen a massive upturn in properties coming landlord properties coming onto the market for sale which equally then has increased the number of Section 21 notices we've had to issue because they need vacant possession in order to sell their property. Which is.
It has given us an opportunity that has given us an opportunity to have discussions around rent and legal protection as well because of all of the knock on impact of tenants becoming unsure what's going on. So yes, they are aware but I think there is a lot of sensationalisation in the media and this abolishment of Section 21 has been in some quarters seen as you won't be able to get your property back. That's something I hear a lot from landlord. Yeah, I'm not going to be able to get my property back. I need it back now. And then having to have the conversation that says no, if you have a valid reason why you want to gain possession of your property, there will still be a way for you to get possession of your property back. I have to say that we haven't got a huge issue with arrears anymore.
We did have some issues after Covid and cost of living and we've used our rent and legal protection offers as part of the way of resolving a lot of that and reduced it significantly. We have slightly higher than 1% but not an awful lot higher than 1%.
And our persistent arrears cases are dealt with quickly. We don't hang around anymore and the rent and legal protection offer that we've got allows us to do that because landlords don't have to worry about where they're going to find the £2,000 to go through court. But we've also used Section 8 far more on rent arrears than we have Section 21. We don't wait for Section 21, we go straight as soon as that, as soon as it's a persistent arrears case of more than two months. So we go straight to Section eight and we've been successful.
We haven't failed to gain possession of a property for a landlord through that process using section 8 at all. So yes, we've had to go to court on every single one of those cases. But because we have the evidence and we've done the due diligence and we know as an agent what we are required to provide for that landlord to get through that process, then we've had a 100% success rate in achieving, possessing for landlords of their properties through section 8. So I guess the more positive side of this is yes, section 21 is going, but section 8 does work. Yes, there are issues with the court process and it will have an impact in the courts because everything will have to go through a court hearing. So yes, all of that is right and we need to be cautious but actually when it's done properly it works.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Yes. And I think there is some other good news with the bill in the fact that with tenants being able to give two months notice to leave at any time for some people if they find themselves in a situation, I think as we see now when we try and mediate with these tenants, all they see is a 12 month tenancy ahead or a 6 month tenancy or an 8 month tenancy ahead of them and they panic and then it becomes a bigger problem because by this point they're two months in arrears, three months in arrears in terms of before they're, you know, kind of got at the start, some of them have got totally open dialogue now in the new world. If they know that their rights to leave with two months notice and five weeks of the rent is already secured in a deposit, it prevent it potentially gives them options to exit quicker. So there's the positive. The negative though on it just adds to the negative I suppose the legal costs are going to go up, solicitors are going to charge more and that's because they've got new legislation to work through. So it's going to take them a bit longer to learn. It's going to be an excuse for the legal fees to go up as well. And every possession is going to need court presence and is going to need evidence and therefore, you know, that is, that is a big part in terms of the policy. What I'm sure our listeners would love to know though, whether they have got some rent and legal protection already or they have none, is the practical steps to implement into the business what is actually really involved. Stephanie, I'm going to come to you first if that's okay. What do you do if you have a new landlord in terms of introducing it to and then if you were going to do, you know, an exercise to all of your landlords that didn't have it, what would you do or what have you done?
[00:28:47] Speaker B: So it's an integral part of any take on process that we do. So the minute we start going out and talking to landlords are coming to us and inquiring is. It's part of the offer that we offer. It's on the table, it's an option that they can take up and we do talk about it in terms of can you afford, especially if it's a new landlord that's never rented before, can you afford to pay your mortgage if your tenant doesn't pay your rent? It's a simple question of that. Or can you find an extra £2,000 if you need to get.
So yeah, it's all part of. But it's, it's running a positive messaging kind of way in terms of the support package that we offer. We kind of offer it as a sort of almost gold plus platinum level service, the enhanced managed effectively.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: Okay, so a landlord would pay you a little bit more money every month instead of your fully managed.
[00:29:48] Speaker B: No, it's a night. No, it's an annual. It's sold as an add on. An annual add on which we don't really offer it as an extra monthly part of the service charge fee. It's sold as an add on package in terms of our existing landlords.
Obviously at the moment this will change given renters reform. We have an annual renewal process where we go through a tenancy renewal and always as part of that discussion we ask them whether they're happy if they don't have rlp.
Are the circumstances the same? Would they be interested in finding out more information about it? All of Our team that deal with that sort of compliance renewal side are trained to have those conversations with landlords. We also do regular training in house. At least every six months, I do a session on rent and legal protection with all staff so that they can have that. Whether it's a property manager who's talking to a landlord about a tenant that might not be looking after a property correctly, or whether it's a sales member of staff who's going out to sell or to sign up a client, but might potentially, if the property is struggling to sell, might rent, might rent it out. They're all trained up to understand what the offer is and can have those conversations. So every member of staff can have a conversation if a landlord asks about it. And that common knowledge around the organization really helps.
[00:31:20] Speaker A: I think when you believe in something, it can become culture very quickly. And because then it's culture, it just becomes the norm. And I think that that is where we see massive success. Just before I jump to Tracey and then obviously go to. Go to Elliot, going back to your point about obviously we're not going to have renewals, there's obviously still going to be rent increase conversations that are likely to happen annually. And actually, that is another good point maybe of interjection on rent and legal protection. If a tenant's disputing that they're not going to be able to afford to pay this rent in the future. I'm sure our insurers would hate me for saying this, but you know, you know how we're going to get some of the. Well, I can't really afford that. That's going to be very difficult. That is another kind of good position to maybe position the rent and legal protection policy at that time to your landlord. Look, we've put the rent up to the tenant. They've had to accept, accept it, but they've kind of accepted it begrudgingly and therefore there's potentially a greater risk. So I still think we're going to have the opportunity to talk about it. Tracey, coming to you, how do you provide this protection to your landlords? How does it practically work?
[00:32:25] Speaker C: So at the outset, when they're a new client to us, we'll discuss it on the valuation.
You know, that's the kind of first point of contact. But then when the references come back and they're complete, then it's discussed then as, as part of the good news call, you know, it's all, you know, great news, you know, Mr. Jones has come back past referencing. That means that we can offer you the red to illegal protection insurance, you know, so it's, you know, it, it's dealt with in a positive way, you know, as opposed to, you know, the fear factor essentially. So we get a lot of take up from there in terms of, you know, kind of reintroducing as we are now. So we are literally, you know, speaking booking calls to our clients and we're introducing it as part of the first discussion about the renters rights bill because you know, most landlords are talking about it, but most landlords are talking about it in a fearful way because they hear these news bites on Twitter or you know, the news, etc. You know, and it's the screaming headlines. So we're introducing it, you know, in a kind of soft way and then say, look, this is happening, but this is what you can do to protect yourself. So you know, but, but that's worked well for us so far as I say. I think in the last, the last week or so we've had 10 new policies. As a result of that we get an awful lot of management takeovers as well. So at that point, you know, we would, would, you know, introduce rental legal tax insurance to our new clients in that way as well. But yeah, we find that, you know, it's a no brainer for a lot of people. Okay.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: And Elliot, I know we have definitely seen, I know you mentioned at the beginning of the pod that this is becoming one of our most popular products. We're seeing big up to taking it. Agents are, you know, that might not have had an interest in it in the past suddenly do. We're seeing a lot more bulk transfers, portfolio write outs. Just kind of give us a bit more insight into that.
[00:34:14] Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely. So interest is, is higher than ever in the policy. But we're also seeing, we're seeing more agents on the ground using RLP potentially as an upsell to their fully managed service as well. Sometimes not even intentionally. But obviously communication is key here. So making sure landlords are aware of the changes coming, they're aware of how more complicated things are going to get.
Really important to let them know that. And that then obviously hammers home to a landlord often. What are the benefits of upgrading to a fully managed service and having someone else take up this responsibility for me.
[00:34:55] Speaker A: And for anybody that is interested in it. We have an implementation pack based on how you want to implement it in your business letters that you can send out to your landlords, you know, to introduce it, which, you know, you can export wording or use the letter in its own right. So There's a huge amount of useful information from us and I'm sure many other kind of companies across the uk.
[00:35:16] Speaker D: But we, yeah, we have a field based. Oh, sorry, Heidi, I was just gonna, I was just gonna say we, we have a field based team. So we run regular training sessions regionally on rental legal protection, how best to implement it, how you can get the best conversion, the different ways of offering it to your landlords. There's, there's loads and loads of things that we can help on and, and we do do on a daily basis.
[00:35:37] Speaker C: I have to say, as well, we've had that. So Nigel, you know, it's obviously our guy, he's. He's actually done training for my guys in Colchester and Whitten. You know, it's been, you know, like an online thing. We had a conversation. I think he came in to see us towards the end of last year and we were speaking about this and, you know, all the things that you guys, you know, can do to support us, which is, you know, brilliant. And that actually does lighten the load, you know, makes you realize that you're not actually on your own with that. And off the back of that, he then arranged training for all of my teams, which is brilliant.
[00:36:05] Speaker A: Yeah, excellent. And we can help with webinars, you know, we can run webinars for your landlords to join and we can kind of do a joint effort. We can do live landlord events if you want to get your landlords together. So anything like that is completely on the table for consideration. I think it's a product that internally, all of my team feel hugely passionate about because for not much money, it can protect so much. And we talk about uncertain times really ahead and the market isn't going to be predictable. And so when that happens, the risk is greater. And with landlords, to your point, Stephanie, you know, looking to exit or consider their options, at least everybody that remains, we need to protect them the very best, very best we can. And the message that I would give is if an agent doesn't want, or a landlord doesn't want, more importantly to have the full rent and legal protection because it seems too much when you're talking in hundreds of pounds to just go and present legal protection to them, especially with so many changes that are coming, is probably sensible. But my last question to you both is looking ahead, what would you say is the single most important step a letting agent should take now on preparing for the changes that the bill is going to bring in?
[00:37:30] Speaker C: I think I've got three points on this so I'll be quick though. First one is to educate and that is to all staff and landlords, I think communicate again to all staff and landlords and then just to embrace it. I mean, you know, it's happening. We can't, you know, we can't deny the fact of that, you know, and I think you're pretending it's not happening or waiting for it to be finalised. Personally, I think that's a mistake. I think all staff members, you know, from top to bottom, you know, whatever their position, they have to know all the facts all the time. That's reviewed constantly, you know, and I think making sure that you, you, the source that you got, that you get your information from is valid like yourselves or the gov.uk website, you know, not doing a deep dive on Google, you know, I think those are the things for me. But you know, it's happening so let's not pretend it's not.
[00:38:20] Speaker A: Yeah, and I think all of this, I 100 agree, there's no point waiting. Most of the legislation is known. There's going to be some twists and turns as we get towards D day, I'm sure, but the majority is pretty predictable really. Changed as it's kind of moved through the process so far. Although I think our biggest fear at the beginning was section 21 and that's now changed to maybe advance rent and all of that.
But it's a market ready solution. It doesn't matter when RRB comes, when it comes and in what form it comes. Rent and legal protection is just a brilliant product to make sure that you are ready for the changes in the market.
[00:39:00] Speaker B: Stephanie, to you, I mean I would reflect everything that Tracey's just said and completely agree with it that I mean, don't panic, keep calm, carry on, it's coming, it's not going away.
I mean my view on it right from the start is yes, there's some curveballs in there, but there isn't anything really in there that absolutely throws the baby out with the bath water.
It's about adapting and changing and being ready for it. And if you can do it now, do it now. Don't wait. One of the massive selling points for an agent could be that we're ready for this, that we're already adapting our behaviors and our practice to reflect what's coming around the corner. Because we're ahead of our game, we're ahead of the recipe, the market and we can add, enhance and add an enhanced value that way as well. So yeah, don't panic, keep calm, carry on and we'll all come out the other side with smiles on our faces.
[00:40:05] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
Now a big thank you to all of you and I mean I could talk about better legal protection all day and I'm sure this is going to be a longer pod than, than others but, but, but it's so vital.
[00:40:20] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:21] Speaker A: But to finish on a light hearted note, we always end the pod with asking for our guests for a funny story or anecdote or anything that kind of sees us on our way with a smile on our face.
Tracy.
[00:40:36] Speaker C: I mean some of mine are too inappropriate to say, but one the kind of. Because whenever we have this question I go, oh my God, nothing funny happens because you just forget. So we had to have a bit of a brainstorm this morning and there's something that's had fairly recently. We had rat mice in a property as you do get occasionally and the tenant understandably was quite distressed by it. So you know, the pest control went in, dealt with it, etc, but she was, you know, very, very spooked out about this. So one of my colleagues had to reattend with the contractor, you know, and she was terrified, you know, about, you know, about there being big holes and, and everything and then getting out. So she said, so the, the contractor. No, no, you know, you know, it's fine, you know, only get. They get through small, you know, through small holes. So she said, does that mean they can go and get off my nose?
[00:41:29] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: Oh God. So she was like not even thinking straight.
[00:41:35] Speaker C: She understandably so stressed because if it was my house, I think I'd set fire to it, quite frankly. Terrified of mice and rats. But she was so scared that she lost all of her head and she just asked if the mouse could get up her nose. But obviously we had to tell it and couldn't. So that is, that is a clean one I can tell you today. So Heidi, there's another one I could share, but I won't.
[00:41:55] Speaker A: So we did have another day once to say if you have children in the car or wherever you are, maybe just mute us now.
[00:42:03] Speaker C: Yeah, I went for. I'll save mine for not for another day.
[00:42:06] Speaker A: Oh, we'll look forward to that, Stephanie.
[00:42:10] Speaker B: Yeah, so mine's a clean one this time. I think mine was probably one the one you needed to meet last time I was on.
But yeah, I think it's a caution. Always be prepared. I was doing a. When I was property manager for a while and I was doing a final at an HMO and so I turned up, went into the room And I got my phone and the keys to the room and I was starting to take the photos and I found something not particularly pleasant. Thought I'd go to the kitchen and get some and to wipe it up.
Left my phone and the keys to the room, inside the room, walked out the room, and as I closed the door, the door handle came off in my hand. I couldn't get back into the room. Fortunately, the HMO was about five minutes from the office. So I stalked back down to the office, walked into the office with the handle in my hand going, I've got a slight problem. Found a screwdriver, went back and managed to let myself in. But the moral of the story is always be prepared. And never leave your phone and the key. Oh, no, in the room when you leave it, because you'll never know when you're gonna get locked out. At least I got locked out, not locked in.
[00:43:12] Speaker C: Yeah. Could you imagine with something unsavoury in there as well?
[00:43:16] Speaker A: That's where I thought the story was going at one point.
[00:43:18] Speaker B: And I was just like, really good for human consumption.
[00:43:23] Speaker A: Okay, fine, that's good. Elliot, do you have in chorus, not.
[00:43:30] Speaker D: So much a funny story, but more of a lesson learned, I guess, for anyone working listening that's been in sales before.
My first ever job in field sales. It's really, really important to know that if there's two towns in the UK that have the same name, there's a town in Kent called Gillingham. There's also a town in Dorset called Gillian. And when I booked one of my first ever appointments in field sales, I went to the wrong Gyllenha. And if anyone knows how far, it's like three hours drive from one to the other. So that was that day wasted. So I learned from that day on, always make sure where you're going.
[00:44:06] Speaker C: Oh, no.
Right.
[00:44:09] Speaker A: I'm not going to tell you my story of I ended up once. That's for another day. But thank you very much to all of you and to ensure all of our listeners never miss an episode of let's Talk Let please follow us on Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast. Please leave us a review. Thank you very much to all of you and thank you all for listening. Let's Talk lets an original podcast from the Lettings Hub.
