Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign let's Talk let's an original podcast from the Lettings Hub.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: 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 rental sector. This is episode two of 2025 and I'm delighted to be joined by Hannah McCarten who is a Welsh lettings expert. And so today's podcast is very much going to focus on the intricacies and nuances of the Welsh letting sector. And I think lots of us in England, there's quite a lot for us to to learn and take away for that from this. Hannah started in the sector back in the late 1990s when she was a wee last with just a two week stint as work in work experience.
Since then her career has rocketed right through to having owned and managed her own letting agency, McCarthy Lettings, which she recently sold after 18 years. She's now an independent consultant to the Welsh property sector and a consultant trainer for Rent Smart Wales and also a regional champion for women in estate agency. So in amongst all of that, she's given us some time today. So a massive thank you to you Hannah. When we looked around we thought you would be our most perfect person to come and talk to us about the Welsh sector. So tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself and then we will start with the questions.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: So wow, thank you so much Heidi for that great introduction. I feel like I'm blushing a little bit here.
Yeah, it has made me realize I had forgotten that I did that two week stint as a teenager as my work experience for school. So thank you for reminding me of that and thank you again for having me on here as well. It's a privilege to be able to share my experience and ultimately help help other landlords and letting agents across the whole of the uk. You know, from, from my, my experience.
So I guess to go into a little bit more detail again, I really just started in the estate agency world when I was a student here in Swansea and absolutely loved it. Then found myself in lettings and loved that even more. And it was only a couple of years later then that I decided to take the the leap of faith. I had nothing to lose. I was 20 old and set up my own agency. You know, back then in 2006 we had nothing really to do legislation wise. You know, anyone who was in the industry around that time we didn't even have deposit protection regulation. So, you know, you look back and you think, wow, it was a bit of a strange time. But only when we look back. We could do a market appraisal at 9 o'clock in the morning, list it on rightmove by half past 10, get an inquiry, do a viewing at 12, do referencing and start the tenancy by 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Because the only thing we needed as long as we had it, of course, was a gas safety certificate.
So I have really seen this industry evolve and develop and part of my key values has always been about doing things properly, because when we do things properly and we have systems and processes in place, then we're going to be more profitable. We, because we're going to be happier, our clients are going to be serviced better, we're not going to have as many fires to put out. And that's what kind of people know me for.
So it did come as a surprise, but a very welcome surprise when training for professionals. A company who Rent Smart Wales outsourced to for their Rent Smart Wales training invited me to be a trainer for them and I wholeheartedly said, yes, get me up there. I want to help as many landlords as I possibly can. I'm an actor, active letting agent. In this, in this time and space that we're in right now, I can help more people.
And that's kind of developed on from there. My, my love and passion for training landlords, but in a no nonsense, no legal jargon, no this big ego of big words and la di das. Let's just get to the basics and the facts of how do we take these pieces of legislation and turn them into just easy, practical day to day steps that anyone can and everyone should be able to do and follow very easily without that stress and overwhelm.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: I think you're going to be able to help us all today. So we're going to go back to the beginning because I don't think all of us fully understand the difference between the legislation. So yeah, as an important starting point, can you give us an overview of the Welsh letting sector and the crucial differences between the legislation that the Welsh agents have to comply with? Explain it to our listeners so that we can all kind of get up to speed and then help understand the nuances.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's vital for people listening to this podcast to understand that back in 2015 we had the Housing Wales act come in and part one of that meant for landlords and agents all to be registered with a governing body called Rent Smart Wales. Okay.
And that was the way that the government was going to be able to manage landlords and agents towards being best practice with the legislation and the requirements that landlords and agents had.
So any landlord who owned a property must be registered.
But then if that landlord did one or more of a letting or management activity, such as arranging maintenance and then arranging access, that's two letting and management activities, you would need a license. Similarly if you were doing viewings and then drawing up contracts, you would need a license, a landlord license.
And in order to get your license you would need to go on a training course. And they were usually one day in person courses. That's what I deliver now. But you can also now do them online as well. And it really kind of covers the very, very basics of who is a tenant, who is a landlord, how do you start a tenancy? You must have an EPC guest safety certificate.
And actually for me my values, this fitted in really well because there is now a baseline for everyone to meet. You've had your training, you know, you have to have a gas safety certificate because you've passed your course, your test. At the end of the day is.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: This just to ask a question, is this anybody that works in agency or is it for the owners of an agency or certain levels within an agency?
[00:07:24] Speaker A: So that's really good question. So if I take it back to the landlord, so the landlord says no, I'm not going to do any letting management activities, they will then ask on the website who is your managing agent? Okay, so that agent. So as an agency owner I would have to have an agency license. So I'd have to do the landlord course and the agent course as a top up and my company would be listed as the agency. Then we have connected persons and the connected persons then in my agency would be my team, my staff. So if any of the staff then do any letting or management activities. So the only thing I can think of is that if you had a front of house person just picking up the phone and taking a message and passing it to maintenance or passing it to accounts and they didn't arrange or do anything, they wouldn't need to have their agent license connected to the agency. So within three months of any new person starting in a letting agency, yes, they must also be a connected person for that agency as well. Just everyone.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: Okay. So it's far reaching and I guess you know you've got to therefore make sure you're picking the right staff in the beginning because you don't want a turnover of people if you're investing in time, in making sure they're fully up to speed.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it goes without saying that you kind of have to employ on attitude as well as skills and I have found that the best ones I've hired have actually come from a different, a completely different background. So tech was one of them and she was fantastic. A. She got on with all of the tech, you know, right move CRMs, she had the right attitude about it and she picked up the, you know, the legislation very, very quickly. So. But it was about attitude again. You could also say that you could get some people who have had experience in lettings but have had bad habits and they bring those bad habits with you. So. But yeah, you want to get people who are going to be open to learning, they have to be open to learning and development, otherwise it's just not going to work.
It can't be the sole responsibility of the, of the business owner to micromanage every member of staff.
We going to give them the opportunity to learn and then we manage them, manage them on that, on that education that we've provided for them. But I think it's always been a positive thing because as I mentioned before, it does give that baseline that everyone should be expected to work at a certain standard and there can't be any. Oh, I didn't realise.
Whereas I think in England, you know, there's, there is. There hasn't been anything until now. So I think it's been a positive thing. I think if any Welsh landlords are now listening to this, they're going to go, oh, I don't think it's a positive thing and I hear that a lot and that's fine. But you know, we've got to think about the bigger picture here. Standards had to be raised and, and something had to be put in place.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: And one of the things that I, you know, that happens in England is there is legislation for lots of things but it's not very well monitored or policed and therefore, you know, there isn't really sanctions given very often in the grand scheme of the size of the industry for non compliance.
How does that work in Wales?
[00:10:47] Speaker A: I think it's the same. It's very difficult, isn't it, to police and manage. It's almost self managing in that if a. And we'll go on to the Renting Homes act at some point I think, because we, we have completely different terminology now. Completely. We have contract holders, not, not tenants. So a contract holder who might have a complaint about a letting agent or a landlord would phone Rent Smartwells up and that might then trigger an investigation, a letter. There is a national database of landlords and agents as well, so it gives transparency.
So you can go and literally search if your landlord or letting agent is licensed with them.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: So in that regard then, Hannah, am I right in thinking that the tenants or contract holders in Wales actually help police the system? Really? Because they're flagging certain things and that might kind of lead to a deeper investigation.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. And then all agents are audited every five years as part of their license conditions. So again, that might flag certain things to the auditor that need to be improved.
Rent Smartwells aren't all about coming down like a ton of bricks on landlords and letting agents. They are there to say, okay, can you tell me what your side of the story is or can you show me the process of you letting a property? It's very broad, but if they find something that's not quite right, they will ask you to improve it. Go on a course. You know they're not going to shut your business down straight away. But there are some agents who have phenomenally failed their Rent Smartwell's audit and have then decided to sell or close down the business because it was too much work to rectify it. So that's one of my things for this coming year, is to help agents with their compliance because if we've got good agents helping landlords be compliant, we're going to keep more properties in the rental sector.
Yeah, so that's my hope anyway.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: Okay, so we've got the everybody's a member of a body, everybody has to be trained. What are the other key differences?
[00:13:05] Speaker A: So on the 1st of December 2022, the Renting Homes Wales Act 2016 came in. Now, although it says 2016, it's just taken that long for it to just get through that completely change the landscape of lettings. Here in Wales we don't have short or tenancy agreements anymore. We have occupation contracts. They basically press delete on the Housing Act. So that just doesn't exist here in Wales anymore. You cannot use an short shore tenancy agreement to start a contract, it's just invalid. And then there are penalties for not providing a contract and written statement. So, yeah, no Section 21s, but we have an equivalent.
So it's a six month notice period instead. And you can't serve that notice unless the first six months of the tenancy has already passed. So in essence we've now got A minimum occupancy of 12 months for contract holders. And that's fine if you have referenced your applicants diligently and you're a long term landlord investor and the contract holders want to stay for a long time. So you know, it's only really when things aren't done correctly at the start that this new law could pose a problem for landlords later on down the line.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: So just let me, let me just kind of go through a few scenarios then. So a tenant couldn't leave earlier than 12 months or can a tenant request to leave earlier and that's accepted?
[00:14:39] Speaker A: So it depends if you're still in a fixed term or not. And I'll touch on this in a little bit more detail actually, because it might be an interesting point for our English landlords listening to this. At the very last minute the Welsh government decided to give us back fixed term contracts.
We all breathe a sigh of relief. So you can start a contract on a periodic, and by that I mean a monthly rolling contract, but a landlord cannot serve notice until the six month point in that contract. A contract holder can give 28 days notice at any time to vacate, even.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: On the day they move in.
[00:15:19] Speaker A: Correct?
[00:15:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: So my point is always. Well and again, if you've got guarantors, they can give 28 days notice to withdraw as well. So if everyone's really serious.
Yeah, if everyone's really serious about it, go with the fixed term. And again, the law of unintended consequences. The government wanted longer contracts, longer, more security for contract holders to stay in their homes. And we used to regularly do 12 month contracts. I was more than happy to do that because we'd reference our contract, our applicants thoroughly and we had good landlords. But then we thought, actually the risk to landlords here has just increased, so we're going to do six month contracts instead. You see, otherwise we'd have a 12 month fixed contract and then we could serve a six month notice because you can't serve notice in a fixed term either.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: And so if you served a 12 month fixed term and you can't serve the notice until the end of a fixed term, would you then serve a six month, is it then still a six month notice applies? Always six months.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: Always six months.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Okay, fine. And the guarantor part's really interesting for me because we don't have rules like that here in the, in, in England. Guarantors can withdraw and say, I don't want to be a guarantor anymore. Yeah, and give 28 days notice. So you've just set up a tenancy, tenants moved in, they needed a guarantor and on the day the tenant move in, the guarantor says, I don't want to be a guarantor anymore. Where does that leave the landlord and where does that leave the tenant in that scenario?
[00:16:54] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I think that'd be like a classic worst case scenario. And it put you off doing a periodic contract from the start, really ever again, because you'd have to accept that withdrawal notice. So then you'd have to have that conversation with the contract holder to say, well, we need another guarantor. You needed a guarantor at the start, you will now need another one. So the best thing would be is to negotiate. And I think that's the same for any kind of difficult situation. We understand the law, it's black and white. But then you have to work within the confines of that and try and find the solution. So the solution is a new guarantor, they can't find a new guarantor. Then you're going to be saying, well, you can't afford the property or you must keep your rents being paid on time. You know, if they had bad credit but they had affordability, depends the reason why they needed the guarantor really. So the rent's being paid. I mean, I think you take a deep breath and just really work with that contract holder or that tenant to make sure they understand the severity of that guarantor leaving.
And then if it's not working after the six months, then you serve that six month notice. Wow.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: But I mean, it's quite a big risk that for a landlord, isn't it? Because you know, a guarantor could always, yes, I'll agree to be the guarantor knowing that they only really need to act on the that guarantee for 28 days in which they don't really have any liability at all because the first month's rent's paid in advance and the next rent isn't due till after the 28 days. Like that's just a bit bizarre, isn't it?
[00:18:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well, it's the same as joint contract holders as well. So you have a couple, you've referenced them and their joint affordability is perfect and they look lovely. And then, but you're on this periodic contract and one of them can request to withdraw and they give their 28 days. You're in the same position. So what are you going to do? You're going to ask for a guarantor, you're going to ask, can someone Else move in. Can you afford the property on your own?
[00:18:54] Speaker B: Yes, because the person that could give notice could be the only income earner. As an example.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: Yeah, permitted occupiers, technically they are on the contract, but permitted occupiers have a lot more rights now. So it would be very difficult for you to say no bags out on the street, you're permitted occupier. Don't have any rights under the contract they now do. So it's not really any point in my opinion even putting permitted occupiers on anymore because there's not really much that we can do. They still need the six months notice.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: So let's imagine then that scenario kind of plays out and then you've got somebody that then is not paying the rent or is not paying the rent in full. What are the rules now in Wales about how you handle that situation?
[00:19:40] Speaker A: Well, thankfully not much has changed there. We are still needing to use a different notice, but only really in name. So the contract holder must be in serious rent arrears. So if they're paid monthly, they're two months in arrears. If they pay weekly, eight weeks. So that's pretty much the same.
You serve your notice and then after two weeks that's a 14 day notice still. And after that notice it's expired, you go to court. So very grateful that we've still got that because at one point when I was reading through the legislation before it gone through, I was reading it to be at six months notice. So, but that is not the case.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: How are the courts working in Wales? Do they have the same backlogs as we do in England or are they much slicker in terms of time?
[00:20:30] Speaker A: I don't know the exact average time. Speaking to friends of mine who are solicitors who work in this kind of field, they're saying that things are going through a lot more smoothly. But interestingly, because I did grill one of my friends on a podcast recently and I said, but what happens, what happens in court? Because we don't get to see that. And he said the biggest issue he's got is repairing obligations. So the contract holder will go with a counterclaim and say the property is not fit for human habitation.
So again, the changes here in Wales differ from England. We have to have mains powered, interlinked smoke alarms. I think you guys just need to have battery operated and they need to be tested regularly.
So the difference there, we have to have carbon monoxide alarms and EICRs. I know you guys have had EICRs for a long time. So. But then we've also got the 29, what they call matters and circumstances, which is basically a list of 29 things, damp, including mildew, drafty rooms, excess heat, excess cold, that kind of thing. That if the property fails to meet this fitness standard, then not only is rent not payable, potential big issues does.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: Not meet all of those 29 ticks, does it?
[00:21:52] Speaker A: Yes, a bit like HHSRS housing health and safety rating system. So it doesn't replace that. It's just an additional layer of law on top. Yay us.
If a tenant, if a contract holder does go to court and say the property is in disrepair, then they have to adjourn the case, get the evidence and move forward again.
So property visits for us now and inventories at the very start, inventory and schedule condition has become essential and it is mandatory to do a property visit within 12 months because how is a landlord supposed to know whether or not the property is fit for human habitation if they don't go in and do a visit? But I think now the courts are getting more familiar with with all of the legislation changes. Another big issue that the courts have had in the past 18 months is that landlords hadn't converted their the short or tenancy agreements over to occupation contracts via a written statement correctly. That's a whole podcast in itself, so we won't really go into too much detail about what happened there. But basically because they pressed delete on the Housing act, there was a bit of law, bit of magic happened on the night of 30th November 2022 and all contracts automatically converted over into occupation contracts. However, there needed to be this written statement issued to the contract holders to inform them of the change and it wasn't an easy process. So a lot of landlords have misinterpreted what they needed to do. They've not done it at all or they've done it incorrectly.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: Was there a period of time given, Hannah, of when they needed to be issued by and was there a format given?
[00:23:40] Speaker A: Yes and no. So they had until the 30th of May 2023 to do this conversion. And we have to sort of think back that some of these tenancies are maybe 10, 15, 20 years old.
So some landlords won't have than AST you didn't have to have one. They might have been purchased from WHSmith in 1998 or. Yeah, but you know, I know from my personal experience that every year we had an update from our tenancy agreement provider saying we just Made some changes. You really look at those changes and I'm certainly not going to remember what they are, but the format, the advice that was given was that you need to go line by line through your short job tenancy agreement and match it to the occupation contract and edit it accordingly.
And you can't do that when you've got potentially 15, 20 years of different ASTs and they all have different clauses in. So it was, it was horrendous. There was a company out there who then made a universal written statement. So it was a much easier process. And I actually set up another company called the Landlord Community to help landlords. I did a free 10 module course explaining all of the changes and how to do the conversion through video and also then provided the written statement that I got from this company so that they were given the opportunity of doing it in a much, much easier way. And I think we helped over a thousand tenancies convert compliantly when we looked at the numbers and I would have liked it to be a lot more. Of course, you know, there's 110,000 landlords in Wales according to Rent Smart Wales, but we only had six weeks. So to say that Welsh landlords have been through the mill is an understatement with the, with our legislation change and I can certainly see why they're concerned.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: How have they reacted to that then? Because obviously there's, you know, I suppose some people have very strong opinions that, you know, the changes that are going to come in England, that's the final straw for a lot of landlords and that's gonna, you know, force them or, you know, they will leave the industry.
And yet we've gone through quite a lot of change before and that hasn't necessarily happened in the droves that were predicted previously. What was the experience in Wales and how, how did landlords feel? I guess what were they saying? How did they react?
[00:26:19] Speaker A: Our managed landlords I think took it a lot better than the self managing landlords. We were able to carefully explain the changes that were required and we gave them a lot of notice about the additional expenditure that they're going to have to incur because again this wasn't staggered. We had to do the CO alarms, the electrical installation condition report and the smoke alarms at the same time and then the additional cost of the administration of converting all the contracts over. So we gave them a lot of warning and guidance through that. But also to say, but we've got you back. The self managing landlords, however, especially those that I was seeing on the, on the training days that I were delivering, I'll never forget the first day I was being trained as a trainer. I had two landlords walk out before the first 10 minutes.
So they really showed their sort of dislike for this new legislation coming in and they didn't want a part of it. Now they would have had to have come back at some point on a different course because they wouldn't have been able to got their license and they wouldn't been able to let or manage their properties. But more often than not, I'll have. There's always one, if not two in the room that will say, I think that everyone in this room should just sell.
You know, they're like, this is too much, I'm selling my portfolio, I'm out, because it's scary.
So from a mindset point of view, we're dealing with an older generation of landlords who had maybe a 25 year plan in the early 2000s to buy a nice portfolio and retire and then they're off boarding and they have no reason whatsoever to go back to school and do a test.
And it's heartbreaking because from my point of view then as the letting agent, I was having to serve all of those notices for possession to families with children who couldn't afford then to stay in the area and had to move them out of schools. We had one contract holder who just said, no, I'm not leaving because I cannot get my child into another school. He's staying in that school, he's doing his GCSEs and I will not leave. And it was just really, really hard to manage that. As a mother of an eight year old myself, I just thought this is getting even worse. The them and us mentality is just creating a more, what am I trying to say?
[00:28:58] Speaker B: Divide. I guess it's a bigger divide, isn't it?
[00:29:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:01] Speaker B: So do you think the legislation, I guess the consequences of the legislation, is it what the government intended or has it not worked as intended and it's backfired in some places? And if so, what would be those key areas that you would love to see change?
[00:29:18] Speaker A: I think on the whole it's worked fine. I think there's needed to be a clear definition of safety standards in rental homes.
So I get that. I get that they wanted to improve the standards of the rental sector and also to kind of wipe the slate clean from old housing laws that go back to the 1700s. So they have pressed delete on all of the little bits of legislation that you and I may know about. But Joe blocks on the street, he goes, what? Yeah, so that's fine. But I think they kind of then bit off a little bit more than they could chew on.
How are they going to deliver a whole new. A whole new structure and then get everybody on board with understanding what they've tried to do and what they've done and then put it into day to day practice? And I think the consequences of that has been that landlords have sold definitely, they've just had enough. I think it's not been necessarily the one and only cause. You have got increased mortgage interest rates and you can't offset against tax. You know, it's been a steady layering of stress on landlords and this has just been the final thing. But Rent Smart Wales don't have the data to show this. And the reason being is that every landlord has to register themselves and their properties and what landlords aren't doing when they sell is going on to Rent Smart Wales, logging in and pressing the delete button on that property.
So we've had it time and time again where we go to the NRLA conference and there's a representative from Welsh government saying, well, Rent Smartwell's data shows that the. That sector is increasing.
[00:31:10] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Because no one's deleting and only people are adding. Yeah, yeah.
[00:31:16] Speaker A: So it's difficult. I think it's going to take at least another five years to kind of come out of the wash to see how. What the real impact has been. But without a doubt, then you're in that supply and demand. The more landlords who are selling, the rental prices are going up. There's just not enough houses for families and also single people as well.
[00:31:38] Speaker B: So what would your advice be to agents and landlords in England that are about to. We don't know when yet, but about to go through quite serious legislation change.
[00:31:53] Speaker A: My biggest piece of advice would be to not sweat it until it comes out. I am seeing the same kind of conversations and the same updates on various Facebook groups about this bill coming in and what they're proposing and then there's been an update and then someone's gone back and ask for an amendment and they're considering it and it's this big drama and stress, but it hasn't happened yet, so don't stress the things that haven't happened yet. And it's easy to get caught up in the moment because it's big and it's exciting and it's newsworthy and it's everywhere and it's going to affect us all it's drama.
But until you know exactly what that act is going to say, only then can you sit down, read through it, take a beat, everyone is in the same position and work out how you're going to restructure your business to accommodate the changes. So those just conserve your energy because you're going to need it.
[00:32:53] Speaker B: So I suppose going back to what you were saying, like you said at the very last minute, fixed term tenancies came back in Wales and I guess there was quite a lot of stress and anxiety before that when everybody thought they were going, yes there was, yeah, of course.
[00:33:06] Speaker A: I mean I really had to stop my mind monkeys going off down that road of we don't have a business, this as a letting agency, I can't see how we're going to function. Now obviously that was my horrible mind monkey, but it's there and I think, no, I said we just wait until it is written and if that is the case we will find a solution that works for us. We don't have to always go down the path of worst case scenario. There's a solution out there. If we just put our heads down and, and talk to other people, how are they going to do it? How they had thoughts about how they're going to do it.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: So I'm going to ask one last question before I ask you our final question.
What else do you think 2025 might bring for the sector in England or Wales?
[00:33:58] Speaker A: So I think for England I think it's pretty obvious you've got a lot going on there and I think people need to just hang tight and just take a breath. But here in Wales we need to not panic that everything that's going on in England is going to affect us. However, there are some key changes that will affect landlords and agents in Swansea, not just Swansea, in Wales, the, you know, non discrimination of people on benefits lets with pets, that's going to affect us here in Wales.
But I do also think that that's potentially a good thing. You know they are saying that if potentially if you accept a pet then you can have an insurance policy to protect your property against pet damage that you might be able to claim back from the tenant or they make it a permitted payment under the tenant fee ban. So I'm a fan of mostly with pets because you're probably going to get longer term tenants and then for our Welsh landlords they're all going to cringe at this but because the legislation is changing in England and some of it's going to affect us here In Wales, we will need to give another written statement to all of our contract holders. But I'm all over Facebook on all this anyway, so if you just follow me on Facebook, you'll see me talking about it, but when we know. So I'm not talking about it too much now because we don't know what that's going to look like. So it's about being open to learning and listening to what's going out, keeping up to date with the legislation and seeking advice where. Where you are unsure. But don't go to the Facebook groups as your first port of call maybe, because I see some wild answers on there and you think, oh, I'm not sure that's. That's gonna have a good outcome there.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: So keep calm and carry on at the moment.
[00:36:04] Speaker A: Yes.
Okay, that's pretty much it. Yeah.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: Okay, great.
Now, before we go, we ask all of our listeners of let's Talk Let for a funny story or anecdote or something that's happened to them.
So do you have one for us today, Hannah?
[00:36:25] Speaker A: Yes, I think 20 years in the industry and I should have made notes along the way to make a book. I think there's a lot of letting agents who would say the same for me. It's always maintenance when the maintenance inquiries, maintenance reports come through. And this is going back in the early days, I've got two instances. One, we had a family over from Saudi, Saudi students. And again, the. The language barrier was there a little bit.
And we had this report in and this. He was so stressed on the phone before the days of fixed flow. There's monsters in the garden.
Pardon? You have to help me. There are monsters in the garden. So we did a property visit. We were like, okay, there's no monsters in the garden. Where do you see monsters? They come at night. We don't see them. What?
And it took us about three to four months to realize there were moles, molehills popping up in the lawn. And of course, they've never seen a mole before.
Oh my gosh. But they wanted to move out. It was just. It was so scary for them. And the other one was. We had then the report again, very limited English.
There are wiggly black lines in my kitchen. Right.
They move okay at speed or, you know, occasionally. Oh, we don't know. They just move sometimes wiggly black lines. And again, we do a property visit and there are no wiggly black lines anywhere in the kitchen. And I think that one took over a year to us for us to resolve that they were slugs. Coming in slugs. Oh. So, yeah, you look back and at the time, it was. It was funny as well. I mean, your heart goes out to these people who are really, really stressed. But yeah, the monsters in the garden and the wiggly black lines I will take with me forever.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: Because I definitely think we should compile a book at some point for stories from letting agents of just questions that they've had or situations that they've had to deal with, because I think it would be a significantly big book.
Now, I also have to ask, did you watch Gavin and Stacy Christmas Special and was it massive in Wales?
Because I'm a massive fan.
[00:38:54] Speaker A: It was massive and I've never watched Gavin and Stacy.
[00:38:59] Speaker B: Oh, really? Did you watch the Christmas Special?
[00:39:03] Speaker A: So, yeah. So I thought, I know, I will just cram it all in and just binge watch the whole lot so I could watch the Christmas special and I just didn't get round to it. So I've heard it's fantastic, though, and everyone's really loved it. And so I thought, right, that's still on my bucket list. Things to do is to go back and binge watch the whole lot.
[00:39:22] Speaker B: Oh, I would definitely recommend it. It's brilliant.
[00:39:25] Speaker A: Yeah, well, yeah, I do. I do hear that a lot, but, yeah.
[00:39:30] Speaker B: Well, thank you, Hannah, very much for your time and all your thoughts. You know, I actually think that some of the Welsh legislation is actually tougher than what may land in England in some parts. And if you're still smiling like you are and solving problems for people, maybe we've got less to worry about than we think. To ensure you 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 and thank you so much for listening.
[00:40:00] Speaker A: Let's Talk let's an original podcast from the Lettings Hub.
