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Richard Kirwan

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my expertise in the industry

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Another brilliant initiative by the terminally brain dead SNP.

From: Richard Kirwan 27 February 2024 00:42 AM

One of the problems is that agents tend to employ young and inexperienced (In other words cheap) staff and then don't train them, I started my own Inventory business 24 years ago and standards are worse today than then, I was amazed recently to be told that in a fully managed property, the Landlord was charged £30 to book me for a check in, how on earth can that be right, agents wonder why they are so disliked, well try not ripping people off would be a good starting point...

From: Richard Kirwan 05 February 2024 10:03 AM

Corruption is rampant throughout the system, particularly with small contractors being fleeced for 20% of their already small margins by greedy managing agents.

From: Richard Kirwan 05 February 2024 08:59 AM

I think a good starting point would be to give the system some credibility a flat I rented a few years ago could hardly scrape a G rating let alone an F then suddenly after being put up for sale without any work being done lo and behold it became grade C on the website of a very well known London agent who also have their own EPC company I am sure there is absolutely no connection…

From: Richard Kirwan 05 February 2024 08:47 AM

Its probably the most common thing I see, tenants complain vociferously at check in if the property isn't immaculate, and then when they move out they do their own cleaning (badly) and try to argue its the same standard, which it never is. I can guarantee that 99% of tenants who complain at check in will leave it in dirty order, it also isn't helped by most so called cleaning companies being frankly dire which often catches well meaning tenants out, I always advise them to get the Landlord to arrange it, that way if anything goes wrong (Broken glass in oven doors anyone?) then they are off the hook..

From: Richard Kirwan 20 January 2024 21:34 PM

The best way to keep control of the tenancy is by having an Independent Inventory Clerk inspect the property with the Tenants at the check in, this impresses on them a degree of accountability, and they know the standard that is expected during the tenancy when properly advised by the clerk. I always give them my 'moving in lecture' about their obligations and how to avoid trouble at the end of the tenancy, because I am independent they take me seriously and very often follow my advice and have an easy run of it, part of the problem is nobody with experience explains it properly to them and its not something Google can answer either!

From: Richard Kirwan 20 January 2024 10:18 AM

I've been in the industry nearly 40 years, I simply don't recognise the portrayal by Shelter of rented accommodation or landlord behaviour, I would go so far as to say their comments are blatant propaganda (if not outright lies) coupled with a weak government that wants to be loved, pathetically weak landlords groups and the extraordinary failure of Propertymark to make the industries case and who in part must take a large chunk of the blame for allowing certain mainstream agents charge simply outrageous fees to tenants which anyone with a brain could see would lead to trouble, which it certainly did with the completely over the top banning of tenant fees. Shelters campaign has been cleverly fought, unless the industry pushes back and hard, they will continue to make ground and before you know it rent controls will be on the statute books...

From: Richard Kirwan 17 June 2022 07:56 AM

The real problem is not Shelter but the abject failure of the Landlord associations and estate agents to put the record straight, as a result, more and more oppressive legislation will be enacted until the 'pips squeak' and private landlords are no more.

From: Richard Kirwan 21 April 2021 11:16 AM

So how much will Inventory Clerks charge for this additional service and what of their liabilities if they get it wrong? In my 37 year experience and 21 years running my own Inventory business, I would say about 45% of tenants do not attend their check ins, collecting their keys from the agent. Lyons is completely wrong the last place the checks should be carried out is at the property. What happens when the clerk finds the tenants do not match the documentation, how is the clerk going to remove the tenant? As tedious as these checks are it is the responsibility of the landlord or managing agent to process the paperwork before a tenant gets anywhere near the keys, Clerks have a hard enough time as it is dealing with awkward tenants as it is.

From: Richard Kirwan 03 December 2020 14:55 PM

There was an excellent article about it in the Daily Telegraph yesterday online, basically if you are a top rate payer you will pay CGT at that rate. The government is heavily under the influence of corrupt charities like Shelter and I've said it before here unless the spineless landlord groups and ARLA start getting nasty and pushing back, within a few years your investments won't be worth owning, it won't be long before they stop you charging the tenant damages at the tenancy end, that is of course if you can actually evict them by then not to mention swingeing rent controls, these are all coming unless we act now.

From: Richard Kirwan 12 November 2020 09:17 AM

She conveniently forgets to mention that it is the abject failure of local councils to ensure the standard of accommodation is up to scratch, you can't put people in poor flats and then complain about it afterward.

From: Richard Kirwan 26 October 2020 12:36 PM

Err hang on a sec Inventory clerks in many instances have worked through the last 3 months following exactly the governments guidelines, there never has been a prohibition on doing check ins or outs as long as the guidelines were followed, no tenants present other than to hand over keys at a distance... pretty incompetent of the DPS not to know this.

From: Richard Kirwan 24 June 2020 11:28 AM

I've been trying to sell my late Mothers house in Oxford for 18 months, finally under offer last year, falls through end of November... Market in January seems quite positive... Disaster coronavirus expecting silly offers... market reopens full asking price offer within 24 hours, mortgage survey done within 48 hours just waiting for the solicitors to do their usual thing of taking forever to sort it all out. I may have just been lucky but if you stick to your price I think the prospects are far better than the doom merchants are predicting bad news sells papers, the DT is particularly bad at the moment.

From: Richard Kirwan 11 June 2020 09:31 AM

So Nick by your definition everyone is a leech, we all profit in one way or another from our assets, none of us have the same amount of money so you must have friends with less, how do cope with that? When you rent a car do you expect to be able to keep it afterwards just for a few days, is that how this works? You use the word community, it means nothing, those around you don't give tuppence for you or your well being, just try asking them to pay your rent! BTL is the moral choice for those whose pensions were ruined by the Labour party, its either that or ponce off the state and milk the care home system for all its worth. Which would you prefer? Those that can look after themselves freeing up resources for those with less or should we all share?

From: Richard Kirwan 20 May 2020 12:17 PM

Well Ray you'd be wrong, the vast majority of landlords are decent people owning just 1 or 2 properties a lot of them because their retirement pensions were ruined by socialist Gordon Brown. As for tenants at least 70% of them treat their properties poorly, the standard of cleaning in most is pretty shameful (I have my own inventory company so see the carnage first hand) They never stop whinging about utter trivia and how hard done by they are, when they are living in flats far better than they could afford to buy on their average earnings. A property crash is just wishful thinking, if anything prices are going up, the big builders have warned that they have lost nearly 40 per cent of their production for this year, so shortening supply even more and with the current level of immigration, coupled with the billions of dollars waiting to be invested by the Chinese your sad little crash ain't going to happen.

From: Richard Kirwan 12 May 2020 15:33 PM

The problem is that for years the general public have been groomed by Labour, the Landlord Hate Group Shelter and others into believing that most Landlords are unscrupulous, money grubbing parasites, providing poor quality housing at extortionate rents, throwing innocent tenants onto the scrapheap for even daring to raise a question about a mouldy patch on a wall. The entire blame for this grim state of affairs lies squarely at the feet of agents, ARLA and Landlords associations who have allowed these myths to become accepted fact with barely any kind of response. It is now why the industry is facing all of these draconian changes to the sector. Instead of waiting for the government, ARLA should have been actively policing its members, developing rules for best practice and kicking out those who don't abide, if they had acted when certain agents (You all know who) saw a chance to screw tenants out of hundreds of pounds of grossly inflated fees, then we would never have had the tenants fees ban, which of course then led to much deeper scrutiny of agent behaviour and subsequent legislation. The industry desperately needs to get its act together otherwise we are staring into an abyss that will destroy our business as we know it turning the clock back to the 70's when rents will be capped and the near impossibility of evicting a tenant on any grounds will return. I would start by headhunting Shelters entire campaigns department, they have completely run rings around everyone else so far until the industry employs the same tactics and successfully promotes the truth that there are far more good landlords than bad, negative regulations will continue to be imposed across the board.

From: Richard Kirwan 11 May 2020 10:20 AM

I've been in the business 36 years and Paul you certainly make some good points however your aggressive attitude and sneering tone do you no favours. My favourite greedy Landlord owned 5 properties in Battersea, one particular year he did extremely well with achieving premium rents on all his properties I think £375pw when previously he was getting £320-325pw, so at the end of the tenancy he wanted to bump the rent to £395 as a matter of course, despite his agents advice that the market had fallen away and he would be lucky to achieve £325pw let alone £350 he insisted on trying to achieve the higher rent, the really good bit is that he had 3 vacant at the same time and because of his greed they were all empty for about 6 weeks and he ended up accepting the rents he had before. There is no doubt he is greedy and I know many others equally so who cheat and try to steal money from tenant deposit returns is another common area of dishonesty by landlords.

From: Richard Kirwan 27 April 2020 21:31 PM

I'm sure there is some kind of good reason, but I don't get why as part of the referencing process the inventory check out report is not included in the process, if you want to know what your tenants are really like... It would have to be provided by a genuinely independent clerk though, AIIC or APIP approved, none of that in house nonsense...

From: Richard Kirwan 21 April 2020 16:23 PM

There is no chance Shelter will engage, they are only interested in socialising the entire housing market, nothing less will do for them. The great shame is that the RICS and other trade groups have failed dismally to lobby the government entirely through their own poor leadership.

From: Richard Kirwan 21 April 2020 11:59 AM

There have a been a lot of journalists desperate to fill their columns with the world has changed forever articles, personally I don't see it, people are creatures of habit and will very quickly fall back into their familiar work patterns, true there may be an increase in home based workers but the effect will be minimal to the overall market, I suspect that we will be working flat out all the way to Christmas as the world catches up with its lost 3 months...

From: Richard Kirwan 21 April 2020 09:33 AM

In respect of end of tenancy check out and check ins, I have been advised that we can continue doing our inventories as long as the tenants are not present and any key handover is done at a social distance, I've been doing this for the last few weeks, there are many inventory clerks however who disagree and are closed for the duration. I suspect they are more likely to catch something at the supermarket...

From: Richard Kirwan 02 April 2020 17:54 PM

You forgot to mention getting it professionally cleaned and having an independent professional Inventory Clerk, compile a proper inventory, then check in and out your tenants, without which you will find it very hard to claim for any cleaning or damages that your tenant has done.

From: Richard Kirwan 06 March 2020 11:20 AM

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