Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: 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 let's is our regular roundup of news and views on a whole range of subjects spanning the private rented sector. And today we have a complete treat because in this session I am joined by Patricia Ogun. Fabo. Patricia. Wait for this, everybody. This is just a massive introduction. She is a former solicitor, a property developer, a landlord coach, and has a regular podcast. But on top of that, she has now become an author of a recently published book, Be Prepared Renters Rights and Residential Landlords in England, making her an expert on the upcoming renters rights bill. So big. Welcome to you, Patricia, to our pod. Please introduce yourself and tell our listeners a little bit more about you and your experience in the private rented space.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Hi, Heidi. Thank you very much for having me. So, yes, I used to work as a solicitor, but before I actually became a solicitor, I was first the landlord. And when I decided that the red tape in being a solicitor was far too much, I thought, you know, I'm going to stop doing that. I'm going to go back to my first love, which is like, properties, and just do it full time. And so I've been in property full time since 2015.
I talk to lots of landlords and developers. I run a clubhouse room with some other people. And we have people who come and they listen to what we've said. Because the thing is, you see, for people like me, we've had all the good things that could be had from being in property, and it somehow seems unfair to people just coming in now. So that is why I actually do my podcast, to try and help them not make the mistakes that I made, mistakes that I was able to make because property was so forgiving back then, which it isn't now.
So, yes, so we have this, like, clubhouse room where people come in and they listen and they, you know, we just have a conversation. And my room is usually on Thursdays, so I really, really enjoy doing that because, you know, we're all in the same boat. And again, for me right now, I want to be giving back. And if I can do that in however way I can, I really, really want to be doing that. So that's, that's where the coaching bit comes in. I don't kind of like, coach, like, formally, but I do mentor in terms of, like, development and try and help people find, like, properties that need a lot of love and Then help them change those properties into something really beautiful. And it's so rewarding as well. Apart from the monetary side of things. It's really rewarding because they come back and they say, Patricia, thank you so much. I never thought I could do this. And I've got so many lovely perfumes. They seem to know what perfume I like and they buy me those perfumes to say thank. Thank you. And to me that is just so rewarding because they've paid and that's the contractual side of things. But they're so happy with the service they've had, they go out of their way and they spend even more.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Yes, they want to thank you. And now we've got some of the POD today being obviously on screen as well. And for those of you that are watching rather than just listening, you won't quite believe what I'm about to say here, but Patricia, you have actually nearly been in the housing sector for close to 40 years, which she doesn't look old enough. She doesn't look 40 just for anyone that isn't watching. But what, what really attracted you to property in the first place and how have you seen it change over the years? Like you said, it is less forgiving now for landlords and it's about to get even tougher. But, but what else and what do you most love about it which has kind of kept you so engaged for so long?
[00:04:10] Speaker B: Okay, so, so what, what took me into property nearly 40 years ago? So I had this really good friend, she was rich and I wasn't.
Her dad had this lovely mansion flat in Kensington and we were such good friends, I literally had a bedroom in their flat. And she always said to me, do you know, Patricia, when my dad bought this, I can't remember the exact figures, but it was something along the lines of maybe he paid £45,000 for the flat. It was a three bedroom, two reception, mansion block flat.
And I think maybe 10 years later it was worth a six figure sum. So she was saying, oh, well, Patricia, you know, this is what we should be doing. And I'm thinking, okay, you're rich, I'm not, you might be able to. I don't think I'll get started.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: Yeah, it's about getting started, isn't it? That's what feels like a blocker.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: It really, really is. But you know, I was really lucky because she literally walked me through how to get started. So she wasn't going to rest on her laurels and say, do you know, my dad's got this. She wanted her Own as well and did get her own. So she bought a three bedroom flat in Stamford Hill. And kind of like I just watched her do it. So I thought, yeah, I can do this as well. So I did and I bought a two bedroom flat in Tottenham. And so it had a massive lounge, a nice sized bedroom and a smaller bedroom. And even then I kind of thought, oh, I can make some money from this. So I parked myself in the smaller room, the smallest room in the flat and I turned the lounge into a bedroom and I let out the two rooms. Now those two rooms paid for, they paid the mortgage, they paid the bills, and they also paid for my law degree. Because my law degree was not my first degree, it was my second degree. So I wasn't gonna get, I wasn't gonna get any government help doing a second degree, which is rightly that's how it should be. You know, get help for one and you do the rest yourself. So anyway, but the, that property in Tottenham paid for me to become a solicitor and I just absolutely loved it. So I didn't do very much to it. I think did for that property was I put in central heating. So back in the day, so this was in 1986, you, you, it was very rare to buy anywhere with, with central heating in it. You did not. So I put central heating in. I think I might have double glazed as well. So I, I bought that for 38, 000, I think 538,250, 38,500. It was maybe 36. No, it was 36. 30, 36,000 something.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: God, you can't imagine that now, can you? Like a house or a flat for that amount of money in London?
[00:07:17] Speaker B: Well, you see, you can't. Okay, but I'll come back to that in a minute.
And then I think two years later I sold it for about 50,000.
Now there's no way I could have worked and saved that much money. And also because I lived there, it was my main home, there's no tax to be paid as far as I was aware anyway, so that was that. But what I wanted to say about the price was when I was paying £36,000, I thought that was a lot of money because I knew people who'd bought detached houses for £4,000 relative, isn't it?
[00:07:56] Speaker A: Based on the era that we're in?
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And also if you think about it, my friend's dad bought a three bed mansion flat for £45,000 in Kensington. And my two bedroom poxy flat in Tottenham was only 36,000. So it's all very relative. And I know that people will say, do you know what, you guys had it easy because prices are so much higher now. But like you say, it's all very relative. You know, nothing's ever easy when you're doing it. You just have to have the determination to actually just say, this is what I want. I'm going to work towards it and I'm going to get what I want lawfully.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: And I said to Patricia just before we started the recording that she's the first property developer that we've had on here. But you do have a particular love, don't you, for neglected rundown properties and doing a big turnover, a turnaround job on them?
[00:08:46] Speaker B: I do. Because the thing is, there are so, you know, the architecture in London. So my, my, my area of kind of like trying to find and do what I do is actually in London. And the architecture in London is amazing. It's just so gorgeous. And I just think some of those rundown properties, you walk into them. When I walk into them, I am so excited because I can see all the things that I can do. I can see what I can do to it, to bring it bang up to date and make it a lovely home for people to live in. And I find that really exciting. And I think I also come from a fairly creative family because so I come from a family of five, five siblings, and all of us, bar one, does art. So we've always kind of like, you know, studied art and enjoy it, we do it. And my nephews and nieces, they're all into art. Both of my sons were artistic and did art and, you know, were lauded for it. So I think I come from that side of things as well.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: So you've got vision, I suppose, and that's probably quite important, isn't it? When you walk into a property, you've got to be able to see what it could be do, you know?
[00:10:03] Speaker B: Exactly. And my husband does not have that. And he will be the first person to say. And, you know, a number of times he said to me, oh, when, when we walked in here, because initially I used to say, you know, let's go and have a look at this. You know, come and see what I'm doing. And now I just leave him be because he can't. And I'm there and I'm thinking, and I'm gonna put this there and that there, and I'll do this like this. And he just nods his head. And then when it's all done and he comes back, he goes, I didn't see it, but I now remember you were saying that. And now I just think there's no point in torturing him, let him just stay, you know.
Yeah, he doesn't get excited like I do.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: So before we move on to the more exciting or less exciting topic of the Renters Rights Bill, just kind of give our listeners a few quick tips on if they, you know, if they want to kind of develop property or they like the idea of, you know, taking something that's really neglected and turn it around. What is like the first steps that you would say to them to take?
[00:11:02] Speaker B: I would say, first of all, you need to understand the floor space that you're working with.
I try not to do anything to the floor space I want, I like to work within that floor space. But if you've got the guts and you've got the vision to extend, then that's even better. That's a lot, lot better. But, you know, understand the floor space that you're working with. I tend to rejig things and make it better, make it more usable. Because the thing is, when you think about the lack of accommodation in London, it's a shame really, that you then have like 14 square foot kitchens where people only go into for maybe, you know, a couple of hours a day, you know, turn into a living room, put your kitchen into a lounge if it's big enough, and then if you can cook in the lounge, it makes it even more sociable.
But also you've then got that extra bedroom. And I just think there are so many properties in London where that could be taking place. You know, we've got studio flats that are just like a waste of space. You know, one bedroom flats, waste of space.
It's not so financially productive to go from a 2 to a 3 or a 3 to a 4 when we're talking about flats. Yeah, but with flats, studios and one beds, it's well worth looking at to see if that can be done. So those are the kind of things that I like doing, making it just so much better and more valuable.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: Would you just have one project on the go at one time?
[00:12:41] Speaker B: Well, actually, I've just. We're just literally finishing a third one that I've been running, you know, all of them concurrently.
I don't think I'm going to do it again. It's the second time that I've done three projects together and I tell you, I'm so, so knackered because it's dealing with builders, dealing with suppliers and Dealing with. Oh, it's so it's the imagination as.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: Well to like think of that much all at once, I would imagine.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: Well, the thing is, I think, you know, I walk into a place that I'm going to buy and I immediately can see what I'm going to do with it. So that vision always, it very rarely deviates unless there's a structural issue where I can't do one. But I always have like a plan B and a plan C. So, yeah.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: Okay, so I could talk to you all day about that, but that's not, that's not what I'm allowed to do today. Because we have got the subject of the Renters Rights Bill. So let's kind of move back to today and the reality. So the Renters Rights Bill, we are all expecting it to be enacted in the next few, few months. What that looks like, we're not completely sure. We're waiting for it to go to committee stage, which is likely to happen very soon. But in the meantime, you have written a book on the topic and written it very much from the perspective of a landlord, but also your experience of being a solicitor. So the title is Be Prepared and what's your view? What's your view on the bill overall?
Let me ask that question first and we'll go on to the others.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: All right, So I think the bill is trying to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Now there are so many really, really good things in the bill, so don't get me wrong. The outlawing of discrimination, I think that is really good. And again, I suppose being a person of colour, I'm very sensitive about discrimination.
I'm very lucky.
Maybe in my whole life I've only experienced it once that I'm aware of and that's all that matters. If you're not aware of it, it doesn't matter, it doesn't count. But I am very, very conscious of discrimination. So I think, personally, I think that's really, really good. I think also the database is a very, very good thing because we're all aware of scammers who will say that they're letting a property and they'll take deposits and first month rents from loads of people and then they'll disappear. With the database, that should become impossible as long as tenants are educated and they know not to let from someone who's not given them their database identifiers. So that I think is very, very good. There's also another bit in there which doesn't really have very much to do with being a landlord, and that is the exclusion from being an assured tenancy. So at the moment, lots of people who buy flats might have come across a problem when trying to secure finance where the lender might say, no, we can't lend on this because the ground rent is too high or the grand rent might become too high in the future. And that was quite problematic. But this bill is now going to address that and that will no longer be a problem. And the reason why it was a problem was because it said in London, £1,000, outside of London, £250. If you owed more than those amounts, then you had an assured tenancy. With assured tenancies, you could. If the rent was owed for more than two months, it was a mandatory ground of possession.
So unscrupulous, and I'm going to use Matthew Pennicuk's favourite word, unscrupulous landlords could then use that, you know, that particular clause to take back a leasehold property that somebody had paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for. Maybe not that much, but, you know, however much they borrowed money on it, money had been lent on it and the landlord just takes it back because ground rent is outstanding. That is not going to be a problem anymore. So that also is a very, very good thing in the bill. Another good thing in the bill, which I.
So I'm trying to look at the positives as well, is that the bill says there's nothing to stop a landlord from bas their decision on affordability.
So that's quite good. It's not completely stripping landlords of every single landlord. Right.
And I think that's also good.
And there are some other, you know, bits and pieces in there that are good. But when I first read the bill, so when the Conservatives, when they were proposing the Renters Reform Bill, I was being asked in my clubhouse room, patricia, what do you think about this? And I said, look, there's no point in delving into it now because it's going to be quite different by the time it becomes law. When it becomes law, I'll have a deep dive and then I'll let you guys know. Well, that never came to anything. And then we had, you know, Labour being elected and the brim. Yep, a new government and we've got the Renters Rights Bill now because of what Labour did with the. The fuel allowance for pensioners, I thought, they're not taking any prisoners. You know, if they say they want to do something, they're going to be doing it. And, you know, and also because this is one of their manifesto promises about Reforming, you know, the private rented sector. I thought, now is the time to be looking at this. So I got the bill and I never thought I'd be reading legislation again, not after 2015 and I'd retired from the law. But I thought I must read this because I want to know what it contains, I want to know what the new landscape is going to be. And, you know, the more I read, the more I was filled with dread because, like I said, I think it's trying to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. No one's not, no one's going to argue about the nut needing to be cracked. It's just how you do it.
[00:19:34] Speaker A: And which particular bits of the bill, let's pick two bits of the bill that you are, that are you particularly concerned about.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: So the main one that I'm concerned about is all to do with the enforcement side of things.
So what the bill does is it's been thought about quite cleverly, but I think it's been thought about by people who don't have very much practical experience, please pardon my cat.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: Around here. So they all want to join in on it, they all want to listen.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: But I don't think there's been a lot of, like, practical experience being brought to bear. So what they've done is they've said local authorities have a duty to enforce.
Now if we step back and so duty to enforce, you know, most of us will think, okay, what does that mean? What does duty to enforce actually mean? And the way that I've been explaining it to people is, if we look at local authorities today, what is their biggest problem? It's lack of cash. Why do they not have the cash or why are they spending more than they have? It's because they're having to house homeless people.
Now they're having to house homeless people because they have a duty to do so. So that is, that just tells everyone what this really means, this duty to enforce. They must enforce the renters rights legislation. They have no choice, they must enforce the legislation now. So that's the one thing which may or may not be about. It may be good, it may be bad. I'm not passing judgment on that per se, but what really worries me is that when they enforce the legislation and they can fine landlords £7,000 or £40,000 or multiples of sevens or multiples of.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: 40,000, they can quite high, doesn't it, quite quickly, I think. Yeah, yeah.
[00:21:47] Speaker B: They can then keep that money as long as they, as long as they're using it for their enforcement actions. Now, local authorities are broken at the moment. Now if they can, which I suspect they probably will at some point or other, put all of their staff onto some kind of like enforcement duty rotor, they can then use these fines to pay salaries and that will get them out of their financial problems. So it's like one of these, like no win, no fee type of situations. If you don't find a landlord, you don't stay afloat. So. And I don't think that's right, I don't think that's fair. But anyway, but it is what it is.
The other thing that I have an issue with is that I've had problems with local authorities in the past.
So I will say to them, okay, you know, this is the landlord for this property, but please send me any bills and things to this address, my home address. I work from home and a number of times and I had a post on LinkedIn last week or the week before and so many people said it happened to them as well. So it seems to be a bit of a practice. And what will happen is I don't get a bill, I don't get a reminder, I don't get the court summons, but I get the liability order. So when the liability order comes, the council tax, suddenly somebody knows exactly where to post it, but they don't need to post the other ones to me and then I can't do anything about them. And I've had one. The one that I posted about on LinkedIn recently was there's no tax due, none whatsoever. But I got the. So I had a letter from an enforcement person saying you owe, I think it was 500 and something pounds. Enforcement, because whatever. So I rang the enforcement person, she said, you need to speak to the council. It took me ages to get through to the council and I said, why has this bill been raised? I said, it's not now a question of you withdrawing the amounts, it's a question of you telling me why this was started at all. I said, because I know my rights and I know how to defend myself and my businesses. I said, but what about vulnerable people? I said, somebody who wouldn't know. Exactly. I said, somebody could have received a similar bill and they would have been worried sick. I said, this bill should never have been raised. No council taxes due at all. If anything, you've doubled charged myself and my tenant for the day that they leave, because the day they leave they pay the council tax for that day. I also pay the council tax for that day and that just carries On, I said, but we're not going to get into that. I want to know why you've raised this bill. So we, people who make those kind of fundamental mistakes, are now going to be decided whether or not landlords have done things such as to warrant the issue of a £7,000 penalty or a £40,000 penalty. And that scares me to death, I think, and I was never a criminal law solicitor, but from just reading the bill, I feel that the investigatory powers given to local authorities are unprecedented now, even with the police, and we know who the police deal with. They deal with drug dealers, they deal with murderers, they deal with all sorts of people, you know, people that we wouldn't necessarily want to be approaching us, you know, on a dark street.
And yet those people's rights are protected, in my view, and I hope I'm wrong more than landlord rights.
And that, to me is just completely unacceptable. Completely. Because what are landlords doing? Yes, we do have rogue landlords, we have rogue MPs, we have rogue, you know, every walk of life. But why should landlords be criminalized in the way that the bill is doing? And I watched the Lords, the second reading in the Lord, and with Baroness Taylor saying, we're taking the approach of the polluter pays, landlords will pay. And the thing is, when you look at landlords.
Let's start, please. Let's start from the very, very beginning of, you know, a landlord cycle. So you go see a property, you like it, you buy it, you pay solicitors, that creates income and income tax, it creates its own microsystem. You pay surveyors, same thing. You pay lenders, same thing. Then you pay stamp duty that helps with the taxes in the country. And then you've got the property. People like me who renovate, we then go to builders, merchants, same thing. We get builders, same thing. We buy property from furniture companies, same thing. We are propping up the economy as far as I can see it. And yet we are public enemy number one. And I just don't get it. I honestly don't get it. But anyway, enough of a rant.
And, you know, it's all of these things. Polluter pays. There are so many really, really good landlords out there who are not being supported, who do not feel that they are appreciated. And I just think, why should. Why should we, why should we carry on doing this if we're going to get what we're getting right now? And also, I think, you know, for people like me, who started way back when I was studying law, I think I was in law college then. I was talking about the rent act of 1977, which was where you had sitting tenants. And I remember my law professor telling us it was the worst thing ever and to never go into property because of that. And then we had the housing act of 1988, which stopped that. And I thought, yes, I can invest in property now because it's, you know, we don't have.
It's changed. It's changed for the better. And now that Section 21 is being removed, I'm also thinking that I should be removing myself from this arena as well. And it's probably out of ignorance, but it is what, you know, you feel the way that you feel. And I just think as well, I'm too old to be doing all the kind of stuff that might be required.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: So is that what the book covers in terms of? Is it aimed at landlords? Is it to benefit other types of reader? And what's, I guess, the main benefit that somebody would get from buying it and reading it?
[00:29:19] Speaker B: You see, I think knowledge is so valuable, so I don't try and sway people one way or another. But what I think is that too many people just don't know what the bill contains and what the new arena might actually look like. And then they might feel trapped. And because of all the reasons that I've just shared about, you know, landlords actually doing good in the community again, you know, letting agents. Lots of landlords use letting agents again. That's another ecosystem in itself. I just think they shouldn't be caught unawares and they shouldn't be the scapegoats that are going to be paying local authority staff salaries for some unjustified reason. And, you know, people make mistakes, but nobody is perfect. You know, as a solicitor, we had to have professional indemnity insurance.
Why? Because even as an expert, anyone can make a mistake. You hope you wouldn't, but the insurance is there just in case you do.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: Just in case?
[00:30:33] Speaker B: Yeah, just in case. But there's no leeway like that for landlords. It's, you know, you put a foot wrong, boom. Minimum £7,000. For some other situations, it's £40,000. Now, immediately. I'll give you an example. Another thing that I really don't like about this bill. So if you issue a notice that's not valid, a notice to leave that's not valid, that will be. You've opened yourself up to a penalty. Now, we know that the validity of notices sometimes are contested all the way up to the Court of Appeal.
So that means that a judge somewhere down the line has got it wrong.
Now, if a judge can't get it right, what chance on earth does that does a landlord have of getting it right every single time? And it's just things like this that makes me think, this is so unfair. Now, some tenants, yes, they're going through a really bad time and they should definitely be supported. I have no doubt about that. There's a question in my mind about that. But when you start to do what this bill is doing, it's also chasing landlords out of the market.
So I don't know how it's going to be, but I suspect there'll be less rental properties for people, and that's just going to make things worse. Now, if it makes things worse, Heidi, what do you think is then going to happen?
[00:32:15] Speaker A: Yeah, it's going to be even harder for a tenant to get a home. We can see that. And the rents are going to go up, so it's going to be more expensive for a tenant to get a home.
[00:32:23] Speaker B: But then, Heidi, if we just hold that thought and we say, rent's going up now, both parties, both the Conservatives and the Labour Party, they. They're chasing votes.
Now, all these renters are now going to be saying to them, you promised us reform, but our rents are still going up. What are. What is. If the Labour Party is still in power in the future, what do you think is then going to happen?
They're going to bring in rent controls.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Then that's the next thing.
[00:32:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:58] Speaker A: Well, even with the new Section 13 process, it's going to cause a delay, isn't it? It's going to cause a delay for rents going up. Tenants are going to kind of near enough, in some instances. I imagine it's going to become standard practice to argue with the rent increase.
[00:33:14] Speaker B: It should, yeah.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: And then, you know, the courts are going to have even more to deal with than they have now.
[00:33:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And they're not being very successful in their recruitment drive because they're not paying enough money. Because I know a valuer and I said to myself, you know, the courts are looking for valuers. They're going to need so many more people, you know, when the bill becomes law. And he looked at it, he came back to me a few weeks later and said, patricia, not for me, really. I think they're really after retirees because they're only offering, I think it was 245 pounds anyway, some amount of money per day. He said, there's no way that I could work for that. Amount of money. And I thought even there they haven't got it right. They know that they need more people, but they.
Anyway, yeah.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: So how can people get their hands on your book?
[00:34:10] Speaker B: Okay, so the book is on Amazon and I published it on the 10th of January on Amazon. And if people just Google or they put into their search engine, be prepared, you're not going to remember the whole name of it, but be prepared, Renters rights should bring you to the book. And the book is, it has like a black and a red kind of like book cover and nobody is going to remember my name. And even if they do remember my name, they'll never be able to spell it. So I'm not going to say, I'm not going to say put Ergon Faber in there as well, but just go, be prepared, Renters rights. It should bring it up at some point. It's the book that you want on Amazon.
[00:34:55] Speaker A: You also offer coaching to landlords. So obviously you're dealing with landlords day in, day out. How are you finding landlords that actually reacting to the renters rights bill? And how, I suppose concerned are you for their readiness to be ready to take on all that it brings?
[00:35:13] Speaker B: So I think in the main, the people that I'm talking to are people who are not, hopefully will not get caught out and people who will know what to do if they are.
But there are so many more landlords out there who were saying, well, it's not the law yet, there's nothing to worry about.
And their properties have moulded and their properties are damp and it really does worry me because I think there's going to be so much like landlord bankruptcy, I think, oh, do you know what I am? I guess I'm a bit of a drama queen. I always see the worst in a situation and then I kind of like think, okay, it can get better and then I work my way back from there. But if, say, like, a landlord only has like two properties, they've maybe got equity of, let's say, £20,000 in each of them, so they've got £40,000 altogether and the property has mould, it has damp, and the tenant goes to the local authority about this and the landlord is served with improvement notices and they don't do anything about it.
They're looking at rent repayment orders, they're looking at penalties, they're looking at fines. And then what then happens is once a fine has been issued and it's been confirmed, the local authority can then go against the landlord as if it were council Tax and all they have to do is somebody high up in the local authority just needs to put a rubber stamp on a piece of paper to say this amount of money is owed and they can send the bailiffs in to, to collect the money or they could put a charge onto the properties to get the money and sell the properties at a discount to get their money. So these are the kind of things that everyone should be aware of. And also, if you. And I do suspect that lots of landlords will get fined incorrectly because the local authority staff just do not understand what they're doing, I'll tell you a funny one. So I applied for a license in one of the London boroughs and then I got. So after a few months, no acknowledgement, nothing, I get an email saying, we're processing your application and we need you to send us proof of ownership.
So we need you to send us the land registry, titled deeds which you can get and you can pay £7 for it and blah, blah, blah. And we also need you to send us the free because it's a, it's a maisonette, so it's a leasehold. We also need you to send us the freehold title. And you know, I was so irritated because I'm thinking one, you do not need to own a property in order to actually let it. What they should have asked, but they didn't know to ask was what rights do you have to be letting this property? And then if you are the owner, you say, because I'm the owner and here's the evidence of my ownership. If you're a rent to renter, you can say, because I have an agreement with the owner and here's our agreement and here's the owner's, you know, whatever. But they didn't know to ask the right question. So. Yes, so we've got all of that. Yeah. Okay.
[00:38:50] Speaker A: And do you think there is going to be an exodus of landlords?
[00:38:56] Speaker B: I do think there will be an exodus of landlords because a number of us came into being a landlord because of the housing act of 1988. And a number of us, again, I think we, my generation were baby boomers. We decided that we wanted to, you know, kind of like, you know, see what our pension funds were doing and you know, be in control and you know, maybe also help society a bit by doing what we were doing. And more, more or less most of us are saying, well actually no, no more. It doesn't mean that everyone's going to leave. No, because even when we had the rent act of 1977, we still had landlords.
[00:39:38] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:39:38] Speaker B: And there were still people who were doing well, you know, in that regime. Maybe not as well as. Not that many people did well, but there were some people who are doing well. So there will still be people who will stay and who will thrive, you know, under the Renters Rights act as it will be.
So not everyone will leave, but a lot of people will think long and hard about whether or not they want to still be a landlord under what is coming in.
[00:40:06] Speaker A: Okay, well, I think today you've given people completely different perspectives. Actually really insightful, useful information about thinking about the Renters Rights Bill, whether we can, any of us can do anything about it. There is a big question there, and I think the next few months in terms of how it plays out is going to be really critical.
So thank you, Patricia, very much. But before you go, our regular listeners of let's Talk let's will know that we always ask every POD guest for a funny story or anecdote that they may have to share with us. Do you have one for us today?
[00:40:44] Speaker B: Oh, oh, I do have one.
And I've laughed at myself so many times about this because I was just completely stupid. But I'm hoping that people who listen to this won't take themselves too seriously because we all live and learn. Anyway, so I was, I was.
I was doing a loft extension and the builder sent me a picture and said, patricia, I've removed this particular. Whatever it was that he'd removed. He sent me a picture to say that he'd removed it. And I thought, oh, I've got a structural engineer. I wasn't expecting for him to be removing anything without the structural engineer saying, yes, you can remove it. So I messaged the structural engineer with the pictures and said, the builders removed this. Is it. Okay?
Because I'm that kind of person. I am careful. And I didn't want to then get to the end of the project and see that we'd done something wrong. Anyway, so I remember so, so clearly. I woke up on this Sunday morning and there was an email from the structural engineers saying, oh, no, he shouldn't have removed that. He's going to have to do such and such and such.
No, no, no, no, no. It was, oh, I don't. He shouldn't have removed that. I need to come and have a look. Let me know. So I messaged him immediately and I said, oh, please come and have a look. Now I'm going straight there. So I jumped out of bed. I'm not even sure If I brushed my teeth, got got dressed, rushed over there, and guess what I did. I went into the loft and I sat there and I held this kind of, like, bean like that with my hand. How stupid was that? If.
Honestly, when I think about it now, I think, what were you thinking? So I thought, you know, the roof might. If the roof was gonna collapse, what was my hand going to do?
[00:42:38] Speaker A: I did.
That's like my mum when we were children, and if she was driving and we were in the front seat and she thought she was gonna crash, she'd put her hand on the brake and put her hand across us. But obviously it was never going to do anything, Ever going to do anything. And I'm assuming it all got sorted for you in the end?
[00:42:58] Speaker B: Oh, it did. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was, but when I let. And the friend near said to me, but why would you think that you'd be able to even hold it, hold the roof up? And when he asked me that question, it suddenly dawned on me that I was a complete idiot. But I woke up that morning, saw the email, panicked, rushed over there and sat there with my hand holding this thing up. Oh, honestly.
[00:43:24] Speaker A: Okay. We've all been there and we look back, and hindsight is a wonderful thing for all of our listeners. To ensure you never miss an episode of let's Talk, let's please follow us on Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast. Please leave us a review if you like what you hear. And thank you, Patricia, and thank you all very much for listening.
