When at the landlord event last Thursday, I heard it mooted that selective licensing isn’t required for Heaton moving forward from 2025. I sent emails Friday & scrolled through new 2025 website & found nothing! So I’ve just used the “Landlord Helpline” & spoke to a nice guy, who confirmed selective licensing is not required for 2025 in Heaton 😮👍, though HMO licensing still is required. I’ve asked the council to send an email to the PRS community, clarifying what’s been removed as well as added as that would save a number of phone calls moving forward. They said they would feed that back & request it 🤔🤞. I don’t mind admitting that the news was received well in this household, a nice start to a Monday morning 👍. Hope that helps some on here 🤞.

I’ve just received the email from Newcastle City Council stating selective licensing is to increase by over 50% from when I paid mine in 2022, upto £1,000! It was bad enough that once a licence was provided it wasn’t prorated, effectively I’ll have had mine for 3yrs come April 2025 & now they want another £1,000!! Are the council in attendance on 7th Nov to explain the rationale behind the increase, whilst explaining to landlords how the monies collected to date have been spent? Absolute disgrace IMHO!

What a great day we had on Thursday at the All day event. Thank you to everyone who came along as you made all the work setting it up worthwhile. The feedback was excellent with everyone feeling their time had been well spent with lots of useful Trade Stands who reported they had found the day well spent, as well! The line up of speakers were well received and they all contributed something different to help Landlords to work out what they needed to do and how best to do it, so there was something of interest for everyone. A big thank you to Paul Shamplina who was entertaining but informative as usual, Suzy Herschman who was able to offer guidance on Deposit disputes and also what could be round the corner on a Redress Scheme for Landlords. Both seeing the trip from London worthwhile for the turnout and reception they get! We were also lucky to have Tanya Hodnet, the Leader of Stakeholder engagement for DWP who came from the Midlands for the first time and went away very impressed with what GB Landlords do in the region and the engagement we have with Landlords nationally now and will be passing this on to Government when she meets with them! We also had Christian Balshen who is the Lettings Director at Rightmove speaking for the first time and able to give an overview of the market and again impressed with the interest from the audience. Everyone got some tips on dealing with damp from the well regarded expert in the field Neil Marsden. We also had an overview of the economy from David MacKenzie of Aldermore Mortgages. And last but by no means we had our own Martin Wardle talking about potential Tax "Invasion" at the next Budget or how to be smart with your tax returns! We do recognise that there were some issues with the parking, the Ladies loos and labelling of the food which were outside our control and will be addressed in the future! However these do not appear to have stopped people enjoying the day! Unfortunately we had a number of people who registered to attend and failed to turn up without advising us, which is very disappointing and something which does impact on our ability to put on these events. I would therefore ask everyone to let us know in advance if your circumstances change and you will not be able to make our meetings after booking your place!

Thank you to those who came along to Newcastle Councils event yesterday at the Falcons and stopped by my stand to say hello or with Paul Hampton from Approved Mortgage Solutions! It is always good to catch up with people we know and to meet new ones and tell them how great GB Landlords is at helping Landlords!! There was a great turnout and my presentation on How to choose a good Agent and Contractor seemed to be well received. Especially as there were a number of hands went up to say that they were not happy with their present Agent!! The big problem many Landlords have is that they put their complete trust in the Agent and "hope" they are doing everything correctly. I spoke to a couple of Landlords who had been left in the lurch when their Agent folded. As I stressed one way is to come along to meetings like GB Landlords and talk to other Landlords about who they use and if they are pleased with them. Funnily enough, we don't get a lot of Agents coming along to our events to network with potential customers and listen to the presentations unless they are there as a trade stand! The exception is probably Louise and Roger from Greetham Gilbert who always seem very happy to discuss anything with Landlords and offer help and guidance. If you are interested in what Paul and I had to say then Martin will be putting the slides into our classroom section in the near future. Dont forget to book your place at our big event on the 26th September! It will be amazing again!!