In this first episode of the LandlordZONE, which is also powered by Total Property, we talk to lawyer turned self-managing landlord, Suzanne Smith, founder of The Independent Landlord.blog and co-host of a weekly podcast called Good Landlording. Hosted by Nigel Lewis, Head of Content at LandlordZONE and Paul Shamplina, founder of Landlord Action, this podcast explores what it takes to be a successful landlord in the new regime. Whether you like it or not, the Renters’ Rights Bill is going to happen. So, how should landlords embrace the changes and get ready for it? We focus on the things that really matter to landlords, such as how they’ll be able to increase the rent in a fair way that balances their needs with those of their renters, and Suzanne draws on her own experience to offer advice for new landlords coming into the market.
Podcast transcript
Nigel: Hi, and welcome to The LandlordZONE and the first episode of The LandlordZONE, which is a new podcast for landlords, as you might expect, which is going to look at some of the burning issues in the sector, but also talk to some of the most experienced and interesting people who lead it.
Today we have Suzanne Smith who is going to join us in a minute, and you will get an introduction about her any moment. But also, we have Paul Shamplina, who is a little known landlord who has barely ever been on television. However, I'm the least known of these two. But my name is Nigel Lewis and I am the editor, or head of Content of LandlordZONE. So, Suzanne, tell us about yourself.
Suzanne: Well, I'm a small time landlord with four, four properties, but before I became a landlord, I worked as a lawyer in business for 25 years and I've been doing landlording for five years.
And a couple of years ago I set up a blog trying to share what I'd learned called The Independent Landlord Blog. And, and I haven't stopped writing since.
Paul: It's a great blog.
Suzanne: Thank you. Yes, thank you.
Nigel: I know it’s doing really well. That's fantastic content you've got in there, but what made you do it?
Suzanne: Well, when I became a landlord to begin with, it's like, you don't know what you don't know. And I hadn't even heard of the NRLA which seems surprising, so I bought a property or I already had one, an accidental landlord flat, and I bought another one, got tenants in there and ticked off all the things that I thought I had to do, you know, gas safety certificates and all that kind of thing. And I then tried to find out more information because I self-manage about all the ins and outs of things. And I found it very difficult to find reliable content because the letting agents all give you a little bit but want you to use them. And a lot of the other things, it just doesn't go into any detail. And I decided to start self letting.
Paul: Did you have the time to do that though?
Suzanne: Well, I wasn't working, I wasn't working at this point.
Nigel: So you finished your career, so to speak, your initial career and then went into property?
Suzanne: Yes. So I stopped working as a lawyer. I chucked it in in 2019, so a little while before the pandemic, but I immediately went on to do a full-time French degree at King's College London. So I did have effectively a full-time job. And, but the properties that I bought were near where I lived and they weren't that difficult to manage. But then some different things came, and I didn't understand the rules. And so as a lawyer, I started researching them, going to primary sources and finding things out. And then eventually I found the NRLA and, and I joined and I started doing content on Instagram. I have an account there called Indie Landlord and I started sharing things. And then I got so many DMs from people asking me questions. I thought, well, why don't I do a blog? And a friend of mine had recently set one up and she said, oh, it's easy. And so I thought, okay, I'll do it. And so just over two years later I've got over 6,000 subscribers. I send a newsletter every week on a Friday morning about 08:30. I write it and it's bang up to date because it's just me doing it, probably full of typos. But it's what's caught my eye in the week. And inevitably I've been talking about the Renters’ Rights Bill.
Nigel: I was going to say, so I suspect the Renters’ Rights Bill, as it's now called, is going to be the most important thing probably we all talk about.
Paul: We've lived and breathed it.
Nigel: Yeah, for the next six months.
Suzanne: Absolutely, I feel it's like my specialist subject because I've, you know, sad thing that I am, I spend time watching the committees and the committee meetings and hearing what they're saying in the House of Commons.
Nigel: So, but if you're a landlord watching this. And, and you are trying to work out what is going to affect your day-to-day the most within this Bill. I mean, we've all probably got a point of view on this, but certainly what is your take on the most important things that will change their lives, so to speak, out of the huge number of changes which are coming down the line?
Suzanne: Well, I think it's probably not going to change things as much as people think, and I know Paul, you’re always saying don't panic, because people need homes. You know, it's like that old BT ad, you know, people will always need plates and people need homes. And so I think it's important for landlords not to panic and to focus on having really good properties that they look after, that they choose tenants really well. They're very, very careful choosing their tenants. And they're a good landlord and they do repairs, and some of the detail's going to change. So, there won't be fixed terms anymore. For some people that's a big issue. Like the HMO landlords and student landlords. But for me, I don't really mind because I have long term tenants, they’re families. And other things that will change the way we increase rents. That's going to change. Which we can talk about if you like. And you know, there are, there are hosts of all other things, but it's a change, but it's not as bad as some people have been making out.
Nigel: If you're, if you are a good landlord, and I've seen most of people watching this would count themselves as good landlords or reasonable landlords or busy landlords if long as they are compliant and pay attention to what the law says you should do this Bill doesn't change that much. If you are someone who dips below those minimums. Is it fair to say that's when you are going to have …
Suzanne: Absolutely. Yeah. And I know it's another thing that Paul always says, you see I do listen to Paul, is that we have to be professional.
Paul: This is the time.
Suzanne: Yeah. I've only got four properties. I'm not a big build to rent, you know, thing. But even when I had one property, I was really professional, you know. And they're not paying me for this. Everybody should become an accredited landlord with the NRLA. And that's just like the basic level.
Paul: It makes total sense. I mean I say this in all my talks and I was saying before we did this podcast, I've been, you know, last month we did talks or whatever. I'm up down the country. This is the time for landlords to be professional. You are naturally professional. Because you were a lawyer. That's inbuilt in you. Yeah, right. You know, you've got 2.74 million landlords out there. The perception of landlording has to change, but it only changes from the individual.
Suzanne: Yes.
Paul: And how you perceive yourself in that relationship to your tenant. So if we ask your four tenants and your four properties, they say you are brilliant landlord. Right, because you look at the detail, you're totally compliant and whatever, but because it's such a siloed business, that's part of the problem, isn't it?
Suzanne: Yeah. Absolutely. I agree. And, my children are both renters and they've had some appalling landlords. And I bought a property from a landlord that had tenants and it had a failed EICR and the gas boiler had never been serviced. That kind of thing. Really bad things. And so I hope that the bad landlords go and I know there's going to be more admin, there's, you know, we can have,
Nigel: Such as rent increases you were saying.
Suzanne: Yeah. Well also what I was thinking about is the landlord database, and that will be more admin, but I think actually it will be good, it'll be useful when it eventually gets set up. And, you know, with government IT projects
Nigel: Was that with, with the database, we're talking really about probably a day's work to set it up and probably a couple of hours a year just to keep it up to date.
Suzanne: Well it depends about how many properties you have.
Nigel: For each property, yeah. Probably
Suzanne: It won’t take a day…
Nigel: I'm being generous. And some people are slower.
Paul: It would take half an hour depending on how many properties you’ve got.
Suzanne: And you're going to have the ombudsman and we know that's going to
be the housing ombudsman. And of course, you know, that’s going to be confusing for tenants. You know it if they've got a letting agent which one they go to. But that's another subject. But the big, the big change is I think the way we increase rent.
So at the moment, you can do it three ways. If you have a rent review clause in the tenancy agreement, you have to use that. You can do it through a Section 13 notice, which I have done. Or you can do it informally, or you might issue them that
Nigel: Which is how most people do it
Suzanne: Right. Yeah. Or they, a lot of people just renew and do another tenancy. Now we're not going to be able to do that because there's going to be no more fixed terms.
So we're all going to have to use this Section 13 notice. And the reason why the Government have done this is Section 13 is part of this has a right of appeal for the tenant to the first-tier tribunal. And they can do that at the moment if they think it's above market rent, they can already do that. But what's going to change is that at the moment, the tribunal will set a rent that they think is market and that might be above the rent proposed by the landlord. And so a lot of tenants, not that many tenants do it, are worried if they appeal it, it might go up,but they're changing the rules so it can only stay the same or go down.
Paul: Because that’s supressing rents as well, isn't it?
Suzanne: Yeah. But the kicker, the real kicker is at the moment, if somebody takes you to the tribunal and the tribunal says your rent is X, then they have to backdate the rent payment to the date
Nigel: Retrospective. Yeah.
Suzanne: But in the new rule, the new rent will start the first rent payment after the tribunal comes to a decision. And given the delays already in the tribunals, and the NRLA have published some research on this, that means that the whole process, if you've got a tenant who's unhappy, then they can delay. It'll be …
Paul: Backdated
Suzanne: That, that it won't be backdated anymore. That they'll, they'll get, you know, maybe six months at the new rent. But I, so, you know, for me
wearing my legal hat, I think, well you’ve got to prepare for that and think, get evidence of what's a market rent. And then I think people appeal things when they feel aggrieved. And if you get tenants that are faced with like a, a rent increase of 20/30%, it makes them angry and they're likely to…
Paul: But isn't that also going to … I can see a massive spike in rent repayment orders as well. Do you not think that's going to come into play under the Renters’ Rights Bill?
Suzanne: Oh yeah, absolutely. For the rent increases. But I think what landlords should do is not have these big hikes, even if it brings up their rent to below market value. If they just do little and ofte,n CPIH, which is what I do. Then it's just less likely to be an issue.
Nigel: Someone was saying to me, the best advice is to always put the rent up every year by a small amount.
Suzanne: Exactly.
Nigel: And, and whatever percentage is the EPI (economic performance index).
Paul: But I think about, and I talk about rent increases, and I say this all the time. Historically, landlords don’t put rents up, They got forced to put rents up after September, 2022 with a debacle of a budget.
And I have to remind landlords because landlords have short memories, and you know, you've been a landlord for four or five years, but the times before, we've had 0% interest rates for the part of 11, 12 years. We've been in this game a long time. But landlords forget about that. And if you think about you've got an interest rate about 5%, that's the norm anyway. Landlords weren’t used to that. But obviously fixed term mortgages were come in, and they were forced to put rents up, which of course the knock on effect was, to tenants, wasn't it?
Nigel: So if I could ask you a question, talking of section numbers, numbers and sections. Have you ever evicted anyone and had to use a Section 21?
Suzanne: I have used a Section 21 notice. My very first landlord property was actually an accidental landlord flat that I'd bought for work purposes. And I decided that I should sell it because the yield, and this was like the beginning of 2022.
Nigel: Well, the yield was only 14% or something.
Suzanne: The yield was 3.8%.
Nigel: Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Suzanne: Now, now that is, now I didn't buy it as a buy to let, but the service charge gone up so much. So that's a yield less the service charge. And I just, and I think, you know, as landlords, as investors, we should still be, you know, looking at something to see if it still washes its face. Now this, it was a lovely flat, I had lovely tenants, but it wasn't making any money.
Paul: The costs go up as well.
Suzanne: I would get more money by putting money in the bank. And this was even before the interest rates went up. So what I did is I went and chatted to them six months beforehand and said to them, look, I'm going to sell the flat. Then I served the Section 21notice a bit closer to the time, they asked to say another month. And I let them stay another month. And they went, you know, they were fine. I gave them a wonderful reference and the full deposit back.
Nigel: So therefore, if that same scenario had come up or comes up in a year's time when the new Renters’ Rights Bill and the whole Section 21 thing comes in, would that be different? And how do you feel about that?
Suzanne: Well, yes, it is going to be different. And I'm sure that Landlord Action are going to be very busy because it's a change. At the moment it’s Section 21. You don't have to give a reason, you will have a reason.
Paul: There's normally always a reason.
Suzanne: Yeah. There is normally a reason.
Nigel: In that case you were selling up, right?
Suzanne: Yeah, I was selling up. So for this one, once the Bill comes into effect, it's a different process, section eight. And that is an evidence-based process. And so you need to be thinking about evidence and you need lawyers, you need solicitors advising you not some Tom, Dick or Harry who calls himself a specialist. And so, you'll need to provide evidence to the court that you are going to sell. And you won't be able to do it in the first 12 months of tenancy. Which I think is fair enough. You'll have to give them four months’ notice and you will then look for a purchaser. If you don't sell the property, then you can't re-let it 12 months I think from the date you got an order for possession when they moved out. Well, whenever that date was. And so it means that if you want to sell, you have to really, really want to sell.
Paul: Are some landlords going to try it on?
Suzanne: Oh I'm sure they will.
Paul: And try and find angles …
Suzanne: But there are going to be fines, really big fines. And so it means that you should list the property at a price that is fair and reasonable. Because if you are putting it too high, you're not going to sell it and then you are going to be without income for that time. So the Government's trying to make it more difficult for them to sell with vacant possession, I think they would rather that people sell with tenants. And I think that if people are thinking of selling, it's going to be a lot easier with Section 21 than it will be with Section eight.
Nigel: Wow. Okay. So it's quite interesting because I think there's definitely one part of the Bill, which is all about the day to day. And we've talked a bit about that. Then there's the other things which much more occasionally happen to you.
So, when you are selling a property or where you are reletting it or when you're evicting someone, which doesn't happen to many landlords too often. So, what are the sort of day-to-day things, would you say, top of my mind is discrimination and that you're not going to be able to ban people or say no unjustly to people who have pets and who also have in receipt of universal credit. But that's a sort of day-to-day thing. Because you, you relet a property often once every couple of years that’s going to happen to you more often. Do you, what's your view on that?
Suzanne: Well, I mean I'm a pet friendly landlord. I have pets in all of my properties. The only one that doesn't have a pet has a horse! So, yes …
Paul: Yes, you must have a big house!
Nigel: They rent the stables as well!,
Suzanne: And she would like a dog. But her horse takes up all her time. So, I'm a pet friendly landlord. You do get a little bit of damage. I had some people move out recently. They didn't clean the carpets. But, you know, I just think it's nice for people to have pets.
Paul: Well they stay longer, don't they? And statistically, I can tell you with my mydeposits hat on, very minimal pet damage disputes at the end of tenancy. It's a bit of a red herring, you know, dare I say it, you don't get a lot of damage with pets. It's normally wear and tear and cleaning.
Suzanne: Absolutely. And the damage from the dog was really that they just didn't clean the carpets. The dog, the other dog damage, I think their teenage kids did more. But, and also discrimination, we are not going to be able to discriminate against applicants who are families. Well obviously, if you ‘ve got a one bedroom studio, you can say it's not suitable. I mean, but I think families are wonderful tenants. They stay a long time. They put rents in the community, they look after the property. It's, you know, I consider it to be their property. They’ve got a form of lease from me.
Paul: But on that point, and I think this is really important, and I know Section 21’s going and it's, it's the backup plan and that's taking all the headlines and the Renters’ Rights Bill. Is it going to, and bear in mind you've got an average what of 20 applicants looking for one property and we've got landlords exiting. Isn't there a case where landlords are going to be much more methodical with referencing, they're going to get more rent guarantee insurance in place and get more guarantors. Do you expect to see that happening?
Suzanne: Absolutely. So, I am in the middle of looking for tenants at the moment because these people, the people with the dog have moved out. And it's interesting, the market's calmed down a bit. I've not got as many applicants as I had when I was looking for another property last year for this other property. So I'm not having as many applicants. It is taking me a little bit longer. I've even been, I was chatting to some letting agents yesterday and one of them said, oh, we can help you. And I'm thinking, oh yeah, well maybe I might use a letting agent. Which would be …
Paul: Why are you quite cynical about letting agents? I get a bit of cynicism. We’ve talked about this. Have you had a bad experience?
Suzanne: I had a bad experience.
Paul: Right. Okay.
Suzanne: So I've had two good experiences with letting agents. I've always self-managed. I had two good…
Nigel: You do tenant find only?
Suzanne: Yeah. So I did tenant find and I had two good experiences. Then they had a change of personnel and I had two dreadful experiences that meant me going through the complaints procedure
Paul: Oh wow.
Suzanne: Of this very large, very large and glossy company. And that's what made me want to start finding tenants myself.
Paul: Interesting…
Suzanne: And so I then used an online platform, but now, but it was really easy a couple of years ago because the tenants were falling over themselves. But I've noticed the market's slowed down. So, I'm going to see if I haven't found good tenants by next week, I might actually use a letting agent to help me do the tenant find. But you know, I'm just pragmatic. If I want good tenants and if I'm not getting them through advertising on an online portal, then I'll use a letting agent. So I'm, you know, I don't have anything against them. I just think that they're not all the same quality.
Paul: That's fair.
Nigel: So I think we might have to sort of go towards wrapping it up, but before we finish, one question or a couple of questions for you, one of which is if looking at your totality of your working life or just life in general, you could do one thing differently, what would it be?
Suzanne: Wow, my husband and I bought our first property just after we got married 30 years ago. And that was a deep negative equity in everything. And then …
Paul: Interest rates were at 15%.
Nigel: Happy days!
Suzanne: Yeah. It was,
Paul: We're old enough and ugly enough to remember that.
Suzanne: Looking back at, if you look at the graph it was the best time to buy. And, and so I guess my one regret is we didn't keep that first house because it would make a fantastic little rental and it would've gone up like I don’t know, five times in, in 30 years or maybe even more than that. So I guess that's my one regret.
Nigel: And I think the other question was if you were a landlord, or if you were talking to a landlord and they said, I've got 20 grand spare, I don’t know what to do with it, but I want to spend it on my buy to let property. What would you say?
Suzanne: Well, 20 grand's quite a lot of money. I guess there are two things I would spend the money on. Obviously, it depends on the property. One is energy efficiency upgrades. I recently spent £15,000 on one of my properties replacing the windows. I mean, they were rotten anyway. And putting in insulation, new boiler, all that kind of thing. Because even if it doesn't come into effect in 2030, the new EPC rating rule, it's going to come in some time or another. And it makes the property easier to let. And more importantly for our customers, it's nicer for them if they're living in a warm property.
Paul: And they save money on energy.
Suzanne: Yeah. And it's a good thing. So I would spend it on that. And on another property a couple of years ago, I didn't spend 20 grand on it, but it was still a fair amount of money. I just redid the garden because it was like an industrial wasteland of a yard. And I took everything out and brought in lots of soil turf and put in railway sleepers and a raised bed, really, really low effort garden. And two years later now it looks exactly the same. And that has added another room to the house. And so when people come round, they go, and it's not huge garden, just a terrace. They come and they go, wow. And so it is those kind of things I think, you know, to go around your property with a critical eye and think, if I were living here, if I were a renter, what would I value?
And it's not necessarily putting in black taps or that kind of thing.
Nigel: Yes. Or cooker or something.
Paul: It's a USP to a property.
Suzanne: Yeah, it is what would make a difference. And that will depend on the property. So they're the two, you know, big things that I've been spending on.
Paul: I've got a question.
Nigel: Go!
Paul: You know me.
Nigel: Yes.
Paul: What bit of advice would you have for a new landlord coming into the market now, Suzanne?
Suzanne: Well, first thing is that they should subscribe to my newsletter.
Paul: Of course.
Suzanne: And look at my blog.
Nigel: Well, of course.
Paul: And LandlordZONE of course.
Nigel and Suzanne: Absolutely.
Nigel: Two of the best platforms for this sort of stuff.
Suzanne: I'd also say they should join the NRLA. And get a proper education. Now you hear ‘property education’ and it's, you know, all of these, you know, whizzbang things.
Paul: Gurus.
Suzanne: The gurus. I don't mean that. They have the landlord fundamentals course, which is very reasonable. And you go through it, and I did the course, I went through it and I actually learned a load of things. And it's, it's to, take it seriously because, you are not selling widgets. You are, and Paul you always say this, you are providing a home for someone to live in. And, and that's the right mindset.
It's, you've got to be investing for the future and realise that this is special what you are doing as a landlord. And we need to be good landlords. And that involves learning how to do it properly and not nickling and dimeing them and being, you know …
Paul: And I think landlords do need to invest in education. The right education. The NRLA is the best value of money out there for 85 quid a year. I mean, the advice line alone is brilliant. I actually decided, and I've been doing landlord education for years that for 2025, I'm going to put courses on with the Landlord Investment show, no nonsense, you know, day events, which are CPD accredited. I think that's really important.
You know, you see some of these property investing landlords that have paid thousands to go on some of these property investing and sourcing courses and that, but no one actually talks about day-to-day property management.
Suzanne: Exactly.
Paul: And that's what's missing isn't it? But the NLA do that
Suzanne: And that is why I set up my blog because it's really detailed how to information about all different topics that, you know, I wasn't able to find. And, I'm going to have a book coming out next year. A manual for landlords. But it's exciting. And I just think that people shouldn't despair. They shouldn't panic. And if they have a property that's not making money, fine. You know, sell it. I did. It doesn't make you a bad person. But talk to your tenant, give them lots of notice. You know, and just generally, but it's also, it's a business. They're not your friends. You've got to be very business and fair with them.
Paul: Tenants are your customers.
Suzanne: Exactly.
Paul: Without tenants, we wouldn't be here.
Suzanne: Yeah. And you've got to have their needs. And so I kind of think, well, what would I hope my children, the response they would get from their landlords or, you know, or a relation. And it's, it really is the golden rule being a landlord. I think
Nigel: That's a brilliant,brilliant point to finish on.
Suzanne: Well, thank you. Thank you ever so much.
Nigel: So we say thank you to Suzanne. We say thank you to Paul
and my name's Nigel. See you next time.
