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Carla Keegans

DIRECTOR

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About Me

I'm the founding director of, and run, The Ethical Lettings Agency CIC in Redcar, working across Teesside. I'm a qualified housing professional, having worked across the UK housing sector for about 17 years. From trainee to Director! We're open to all, and pride ourselves on our expert services, and our fair fees. We're setting new standards for the lettings industry; reflecting the realities of today's PRS. We're a Community Interest Company (CIC) and choose to reinvest our profits locally and help tackle homelessness.

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Interesting topic, and thread! Few points that I'd make: 1. most agents in my experience (running this agency and my housing career previously) do not know how to navigate the benefits system, therefore they do their landlord customers a disservice, as well as often their tenants by letting rent arrears build-up. 2. many self-managing landlords also don't have necessary knowledge or experience/skills, and how can they when most aren't doing it as a full-time job. 3. the PRS is markedly changed in the past decade and the whole sector needs to catch-up. Benefits is a hugely important issue in this context. for example, almost 50% of private tenants in Teesside are in receipt of housing benefit/UC. Many of those are in work but on low wages/insecure/PT employment, where tenants are often doing everything required of them but it is the authorities that make mistakes. In summary I'd say: a) agents need to be equipped with the necessary skills to manage tenancies in this changed PRS. b) landlords should demand more from agents who blame the system but actually it's down to agents lack of experience/skills of dealing with benefits. c) landlords also need to weigh up risk in this changed PRS (that will continue to change), and decide if they still want to pursue being a landlord (or, use an agency such ourselves that bring years worth of housing experience to deliver effective letting and management services in this changed PRS!). Carla Keegans, Director.

From: Carla Keegans 26 March 2018 12:55 PM

Hi Danielle, excellent piece. We find that many agents and some self-managing landlords are unaware of basic rent arrears procedures, which leads to lots of unnecessary problems and evictions. We always recommend to our landlord customers too that they have sufficient cash flow to cover bad debt, whether that be current arrears, or end of tenancy debt. Again, this can help to prevent evictions; which is usually bad for landlords and tenants.

From: Carla Keegans 08 December 2016 12:36 PM

We're in favour of scrapping tenant fees. We see too many examples of agents charging fees (often obscene amounts) to multiple tenants for the same property, knowing fine well they won't be giving the property to all but one of them. Let alone all the hidden extra charges. The lettings industry needs to adapt to the reality of the private rental market today, and as Stephen notes above; if this move puts rogue and inexperienced/unprofessional agents out of business, then all the better for tenants and landlords. What we'd also like to see is agents not legally allowed to operate a system of hidden fees to landlords too for managed properties. www.ethicallettingsagency.co.uk

From: Carla Keegans 23 November 2016 10:43 AM

Agreed, the PRS is fundamental in many areas across the country. It provides much needed housing for many people. Two things I'd say though, particularly from a lending/financial risk point of view: 1. Some of the tenant demand is artificial; if future national housing reforms make home ownership more affordable/flexible, then many tenants would choose this option. Landlords remain cautious! 2. Poor management of properties, and the tenants within them, is the biggest risk of bad debt for landlords. We offer unique comprehensive services to reduce the increasing rental risks for landlords, that ultimately help ensure mortgage repayments! See our website for more details: www.ethicallettingsagency.co.uk and see our new national Ethical Lettings Pledge: www.theethicallettingspledge.co.uk

From: Carla Keegans 26 May 2016 13:15 PM

Interesting article. Some thoughts... The PRS is now larger than the social rent sector and so any Govt. will be examining it with a view to how it helps/could better help fulfill the statutory requirement for meeting housing need. And also how to collect as much taxation as possible (there are an estimated 1 million landlords not registered). In this context, the PRS will continue to be under the spot-light and subject to regulations. Thinking longer-term, I wonder if the Govt. reforms affecting landlords (and I agree many of them will hit smaller landlords) are actually designed to change the make-up of private landlords; from many small ones to fewer large ones. After all, this would mean easier and potentially more taxation collected, and easier regulation roll-out. A Conservative government would never say this outright, but if you read between the lines...this seems like their longer-term strategy.

From: Carla Keegans 05 January 2016 15:17 PM

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