propertytalk Live!

As a professional landlord with a number of properties throughout the UK, I grudgingly accept that I and my fellows are unlikely to win much approval or sympathy from a left-wing Housing Minister working within a government that is committed to redistribution of wealth.

I even understand - but will NEVER accept - why we are all being barraged with more and more anti-landlord measures (such as the recently-vaunted website where embittered former tenants will be able to malign their landlords without any effective controls).

For anyone who is tired of the constant aggravations and costs of being a landlord, there is a promising future for all of us in the burgeoning compliance sector. I am thinking particularly of EPCs.

Working in compliance means the government guarantees you a living by creating pointless work. Landlords have to comply with this pointless legislation, and as an assessor you simply go along to verify that they have.

Apparently it's not much fun being an estate agent these days.

Well I suppose that depends largely on where you work - and what you consider to be fun. Take my last few days, a pretty typical working week: 37 time-wasters, 19 mortgage application refusals, one dog bite, two fights and a naked tenant locked out of his home.