The inventor of a software system aimed at the private rented sector has said that, as a landlord in London, he is quitting the rental market – for the time being.

Former property lawyer Rajeev Nayyar, pictured, said: “I am a landlord but have been pulling out of the market over the past few months, as I believe that the market in London was and remains overheated.

“With the private rented sector being at the heart of the upcoming election battle, I have decided to sit on the sidelines until the pre-election rhetoric falls away and a vision for the future of the sector emerges.

“That said, over a medium to long term, I believe that buy-to-let property remains a very attractive asset class.”

Nayyar is the brains behind the successful Fixflo system which allows tenants to report repair issues online, in pictures and in 40 languages – without having to resort to phone or email.

Nayyar said: “The current repairs processes don’t work well for anyone involved.

“As a landlord I found that my tenants were picking up the phone to ask me to fix things they really ought to have been doing themselves like removing mildew from the shower.

“As a tenant, I found that it took too long for problems with my home to be fixed.

“Having spent months interviewing hundreds of tenants, about a hundred property managers and countless contractors, it struck me that an ‘NHS Direct’ style system for repair reporting could take a lot of the friction out of the process.”

Although launched only last year – it was named a 2013 top ten start-up company in the UK – Fixflo has over 200 agencies with about 600 branches between them signed up to it, plus a university and a local authority also using the system to manage their own property portfolios.

Further rapid growth is on the agenda. “Our aim is to start 2015 with at least 1,000 letting agency offices using us, and we are cautiously optimistic about hitting that number,” said Nayyar.

He believes that the whole issue of repairs in rental properties will come under increasing scrutiny.

The London Rental Standard – likely to be adopted elsewhere – sets down expected timeframes for repairs for the first time.

If passed, a new Bill outlawing so-called revenge evictions, would make it mandatory, rather than best practice, to attend to repair requests that are made in writing. If agents or landlords ignore such requests, they would not be able to use the S.21 system for six months.

Meanwhile, the Fixflo system also looks like being an international success, with inquiries from countries including South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and the UAE.

The most common problem reported through Fixflo relates to water leaks, closely followed by complaints about washing machines.

English is the most commonly used language in the system, followed easily by Polish. Behind these come Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Hungarian, Chinese Mandarin, Portuguese, German, Franch, Latvian and Italian.

“We recently added Welsh to satisfy the requirements of a social housing provider, but sadly are still awaiting our first repair report in Welsh,” said Nayyar.