ASK514: How do I find a good solicitor? PLUS: Should I renew this tenancy?

0:00Hi, I'm Rob. And I'm Rob. And this is Ask Rob and Rob. Hey everyone, welcome to Ask Rob and Rob, the show where you give us your wonderful questions and we give you what we hope is some wonderful answers in return. It is super simple for you to submit your question whether it be for this show or the Sunday Times. Rob, would you like to explain once again what that easy process is? Yeah, so simple. All you have to do is go to propertyhub.net slash ask. Once you're there, you can send us a written question for the Sunday Times or you can leave a voicemail and follow in the illustrious footsteps of Chris. Hi, Rob and Rob, this is Chris here. I've got a question for you about the renter's rights bill, so know that it comes into effect from I think it's the first of May this year. Problem I've got is I've got a tendency that's up for renewal in mid-April and it looks like the fee to get it renewed, get all the paperwork sorted is going to be exactly the same as it always has been, which is I think quite a steep amount given that if my renewal was up for two weeks later, I would basically just automatically have the tendency carry on

1:04on a rolling contract. I was just wondering if you've got any advice on how I could maybe challenge the amount that's being charged. I don't know if I've got any other thoughts of how I might be able to kind of tackle this one. Basically, really like the tenants, I would like to renew, I think I am aware of everything that's going on with the renter's rights bill, but yeah, just any tips and tricks that you could offer would be greatly appreciated. Also, I just wanted to say a massive thank you to you for all the content you put out in no small part to what you've put out there in terms of education and managed to get a couple of properties now in a limited company and looking to expand further, so thank you very much for everything you do. Chris, thank you for the kind words and for the question. And thankfully, we've got a really easy answer for you here, just don't renew, there's no need to. If your tenancy is up for renewal in mid-April and renter's rights kicks in two weeks later, there's absolutely no point signing them up to another fixed term, because two weeks later, it will completely stop applying. Now, of course, your lessing agent is going to want to do it anyway, because they get a chance to charge you a fee for it, but you can just say to them, hey, thank you, and

2:05you can say why, because they all know, because they might as well just say, look, I know that two weeks later, it's going to convert to the new type anyway, so let's just leave it as it is. And from there, they really can't do anything. The only thing I would think about is making sure that your tenants know what's going on. This is possibly the slightly tricky bit. If you don't have a direct relationship with them, you have to assume that they have no idea about this change that's coming, because most people don't, and therefore they might be getting antsy if they know their agreements coming to an end, and you're not proposing to renew it, and they don't understand why. So again, you have to hope that the agent is explaining everything to them properly. It's also worth noting that the agent, or you, if you're managing the property yourself, you need to, by law, serve an information leaflet to the tenant by the end of May, letting them know about what's happened, but it's like for how to rent guide. It's just a standard document that will have to be served on them, so hopefully get everyone more educated about what's going on. As a slight side note, I'm really glad you've asked this question, because I'm seeing this happen all over the place. Agents are pushing for renewals now, because it's kind of the last chance for them to charge one of those annual renewal fees.

3:07I've even seen cases recently where agents are doing a let only, they're pushing the tenant to take out a two-year agreement, because their terms allow them to take the fee for the entire tenancy upfront, so they're taking the fee for a two-year tenancy, knowing full well, there's been no obligation for the tenant to stay beyond a couple of months. So Chris, thank you for the question, nice, easy answer, and an opportunity to share that with everyone else as well. So thank you, and good luck. There's some naughty agents out there, aren't they? They're not all naughty, but the ones you've just talked about are very naughty. Right. So let's listen to a question in from Matt. I'm Rob and Rob, it's Matt here from Steadlay, asking I think my fifth question, hopefully you can answer this one again. Thanks for all you do on the podcast as well, awesome information. Listen to the series where it's golf setting, making sure you're getting yourself set up for 2026. You talk about the team that you build around you, one of those being a good quality solicitor,

4:07someone who knows what they're doing, can get deals very quickly. One of the problems I've found historically is that, depending on the lender you use, they actually have a panel of solicitors that they work with, and that can restrict, obviously, the choices. I've found that local solicitors that I'd actually be able to go sit down with, maybe I had issues that crop up during the process, that they have not been on the panel for different vendors that I've used. These are pretty mainstream vendors, however, some of the larger nationwide solicitors that I've had for both cost offerings, they tend to be on all the different panels, but their service is pretty terrible for my experience. So I just wonder how you handle this, is there a tip that you can share to us, how best to find a solicitor that has access or is featured on more of the panels from major lenders or you thought of the issue, like, say, great work on the part and looking

5:09forward to hearing the answer. Matt, thank you for your question. There's a real easy way of going about this, unfortunately, but I can give you a method for finding someone to put in your power team, if you like. This applies beyond a solicitor. The best way to approach this is get a recommendation. Now, you want this recommendation to come from somebody else who's a property investor and someone who's fairly active, because they will have a solicitor that they will be using and should be on the majority of panels, they'll also be able to tell you whether they recommend that's listed from a service level as well. We are probably going to invest, have a panel of swisters that we recommend, we don't enforce people used them, but we highly recommend that they do, because we've checked them for quality and we've checked that they are on the panels of the main lenders that buy to let investors want to use. That was something that we didn't do overnight, it's taken time. Recommendations from other investors, actually, the investors we work with and we've eventually built up this panel and our own solicitor panel, we've removed them, chopped and changed

6:10it over the years as well, because while they may be signed up with the right lenders, their service levels drop off. You may find that if you end up working with one this year, in a few years time you may need another, so it's always good to gauge a network with other property investors. If you are really struggling, because you don't have that network, then feel free to drop a note to one of our team at Property Hub and we can give you a recommendation of solicitors that we use. We're happy to do that. If you do not find people in your network that you're happy with, then please do reach out to us and we can give you a recommendation, but that is the key. When you're building your panel out of experts that you work with, first of all, start with a recommendation if possible. Well, that is us done for this week and we'll be back to do it all again next Tuesday, but before then, you can join us for the Property Podcast on Thursday, so we'll see you then. Bye bye.