The GOOD Landlords Campaign

by Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

11:22 AM, 13th December 2011, About 13 years ago 141

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Please leave a comment below if you think “The GOOD Landlords Campaign” is a good idea.

One of my employees has had to move her family three times in two years because her landlords wanted to move back in or sell their property. She wasn’t told this when she rented the property and certainly would have looked elsewhere if she had know this was a possibility.

I fully appreciate that circumstances can easily change and I wouldn’t advocate that either landlords or tenants enter long term tenancy agreements. Financial circumstances can change very quickly for anybody due to death, new relationships, break ups of relationships, employment etc. so flexibility and trust is key. I offer a 6 month tenancy to all new tenants but many of them continue to rent the same property for years and will vouch for me and confirm that I fix issues quickly. Landlords who intend to sell a property or move back into it don’t have such a pedigree to shout about and will not, therefore, be in the same position as me to get such testimonials.

I’m thinking about starting a GOOD Landlords Campaign where tenants can leave positive testimonials for landlords on profiles they could set up here on Property118.com

Don’t you think GOOD landlords should be recognised? I’m talking about those who fix problems quickly and have a reputation for providing quality long term accommodation to quality tenants who don’t want the hassle and expense of constantly being moved on.

What I have in mind is to create a facility for good landlords to have their own profile here on Property118.com whereby they can ask tenants to leave positive testimonials for them. Maybe it will even expand into being a full social network?

This will obviously cost time and money to set up. I’m not asking anybody to pay for it though so you can put your credit cards and cheque books away. I have made a promise that I intend to stick to – this website will NEVER charge landlords for its services. It will make its money from advertising. However, I will only commission the development of this technology if I get a minimum of 100 expressions of interest in the comments section below.

This will not be a Review Website and landlords will have the right to approve or discard all comments before they are published onto their profiles. This will prevent defamatory comments from spiteful trouble makers being shown to the world. I don’t think a review website is even necessary, what tenants really want to know is that they will have a quality property and the ability to stay in it long term if they pay their rent and respect their tenancy. They also want to know that their landlord is going to fix any problems quickly and not to sell up just as they get settled. If you are a landlord who fits this criteria, wouldn’t you want tenants to know about it? Wouldn’t you like to be able to differentiate yourself?

If such a Directory is commissioned it will work very much along the lines of how our Property Services Directory. Protection is built in to minimise the risk of the creation of fake testimonials, they would be date and time stamped and all email addresses and IP addresses would be monitored.

I am obviously hoping that thousands of landlords will register their interest by adding a comment below and that Landlord Associations, Local Councils and Property Networks will also support this initiative by promoting its existence. Maybe there is a mortgage lender, an insurance company or a property portal that would like to sponsor it? Perhaps a housing charity would like to affiliate itself with GOOD landlords as opposed to focussing only on vilifying landlords with “Rogue Landlords Campaigns”.

My longer term vision is that GOOD Landlords will be able to point prospective new tenants to their Property118.com profiles to demonstrate their integrity and professionalism. A good landlord may have just one property or a large portfolio. Size doesn’t matter, transparency does! New tenants will be able to see what existing and previous tenants have written and may even be able to contact them for independent verification. Such a Directory would enable tenants to identify those landlords who are in this business for the right reasons and the long term.

Profiles will allow landlords to add a business description so that they can share information about their time in business, their long term strategy for property ownership, their lettings and maintenance policy etc.

Hopefully the press will pick on on this as it gathers momentum.

How do you see this adding value to your business and to tenants and are there any other features you would find helpful?

Would you ask your tenants to leave you a testimonial and do you think they would? I know mine would, I have asked them 🙂

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Tags: Good Landlords, Housing Association, mortgage, Mortgage Express, Rogue landlords, Strategy, UKAR

Comments

9:39 AM, 11th January 2012, About 13 years ago

very good idea - let's do the necessary.

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22:21 PM, 15th January 2012, About 13 years ago

I've consulted my colleagures and can confirm that the National Private Tenants Organisation supports your idea and wishes you luck with it.

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Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

22:43 PM, 15th January 2012, About 13 years ago

Please get in touch, it will be good to see how we can work closer together. Email mark@property118.com - telephone 01603 489118

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2:28 AM, 16th January 2012, About 13 years ago

With regards to good landlords; I have come across a situation that is probably well recognised by the industry.
That is there is no list of good landlords that tenants may refer to to source property.
Most prospective tenants seem to get stitched up by LA as they do not know any other way to source a private landlord.
I have just heard from a couple of tenants who were none the wiser and were desperate to source a rental property and ended up being charege £250.00 per tenant for their eventual property.
They were not happy when I advised them that with me they would not have been charged anything apart from rent and deposit.
Clearly if such a good landlord list could be facilitated this would assist prospective tenants having to pay ridiculous fees to LA.
A searchable database with property availability would I believe drive a lot of traffic to this site.
Somehow we as LL have got to cut out LA from the equation as most of us don't need them with the advent of the internet.

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11:18 AM, 17th January 2012, About 13 years ago

Being retired I do the legwork on the 3 properties my son owns, as he is often unavailable due to work pressures. A total of 7 tenants over 10 years shows our good record so would be pleased to be included in your new concept.

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Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

12:53 PM, 20th January 2012, About 13 years ago

Response to my email to The Mayor of London ...

"Dear Mr Alexander

Thank you for your email to the Mayor regarding the Good Landlords Campaign, to which I have been asked to respond.

The Mayor is concerned about improving quality in the private rented sector and his draft revised London Housing strategy has a target to have 100,000 private sector landlords accredited in London by 2016. He is also planning to launch a single badge of accreditation in the capital which will be an umbrella badge for a number of different accreditation schemes. This is designed to create a recognisable brand for tenants and prospective tenants who will then know that their landlord meets certain minimum professional standards. Tenants and prospective tenants will be able to check if their landlord is accredited.

The Mayor welcomes the contribution that a variety of organisations and individuals are making to help the private rented sector work better in London.

Best wishes for your campaign.

Yours sincerely

Eleanor Ward
Policy Officer
Housing Unit"

Let's hope this accreditation scheme is not just another way of taxing landlords like HMO licences where decent folk pay huge fees for no return and the rogues simply ignore the regulations and are rarely prosectued. Hopefully it will be low cost and have value for landlords in respect of training, similar to the "Midlands Landlord Accreditation Scheme". If it's just another complaints investigation service I would also be concerned as the authorities don't have sufficient resources to enforce existing regulations despite raising millions through HMO licencing, never mind enforcing new regulations.

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Mary Latham

11:39 AM, 21st January 2012, About 13 years ago

Mark you are right to want to know what accreditation will look like for landlords. The London Scheme (LLAS) was the God Father of the Midlands Scheme (MLAS). I delivered the first seminar for the London scheme and it was the attitude of the landlords at the end of the seminar that made me realise that this was the best basis on which to "kite" mark good landlords. National Landlords Association adopted the same model and run a national scheme. Landlords are passported from one scheme to the other at no cost

The scheme is self funding in the Midlands and the fee that landlords pay to attend the foundation seminar is the only income - no public money is spent but no protfit is made because any surplus is taken up in providing continual professional development seminars for landlords who have joined the scheme.

This is the basis of these schemes

1. Landlords must meet the fit and proper person criteria laid down in the HA 2004
2. Landlords attend a one day foundation seminar
3. Landlords continue to learn by gaining 50 CPD points over the 5 years of their accreditation in order to gain a renewal at the end of the 5 year period. This can be achieved cost free by attending the many free events run by local authorties or by completing the online modules on the NLA Landlord Library or by paying a small fee to attend short seminars
4. Complaints are dealt with through arbitation and sanctions applied to those who fail to meet the code of conduct. This includes the possiblity of being removed from the scheme or being required to attend a seminar to improve the knowledge of the landlord who may have made a mistake.

When landlords leave the room at the end of the foundation seminar they know what is expected of them in regulation, legislation and good practice and feel better equipped to avoid mistakes. The feed back from landlords is fantastic.

I will be speaking to Phil Upton on BBC Radio West Mids on Mon 23 Jan 8:05am about how to avoid rogue landlords. My answer to this question will be for tenants to look for landlords who are accrediated through a scheme based on education like one of the schemes mentioned above. I will also mention this campaign

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Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

12:17 PM, 21st January 2012, About 13 years ago

A plug for “The GOOD Landlords Campaign” on BBC Radio west Midlands would be absolutely fantastic Mary, thank you so
much. All their listeners need to do to find out more is a Google search for “The
Good Landlords Campaign” and it comes up right at the top of page one in the
search results.

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13:24 PM, 21st January 2012, About 13 years ago

Another great idea Mark! We're all for it.

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Nicholas Wakefield

14:40 PM, 1st February 2012, About 13 years ago

Mark- great idea. I am fully supportive and see a great deal of my attempts at business- like conscientouusness in the scenarios that you describe. Regards, Nick Wakefield

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