A tenancy reference and insurance firm launched by lettings chain Martin & Co is recruiting ten full-time employees to add to its existing 38 headcount.
The Landlord Hub, based in Peterborough, was launched in 2012 with just five staff to serve the Martin & Co network.
However, it now has other customers driving its expansion – a reflection of the booming lettings market as well as its product innovation.
Altogether it now has some 200 customers, including a large corporate plus a number of independents both large and small.
Ian Wilson, Martin & Co’s chief executive, said: “Originally The Landlord Hub was set up to service Martin & Co exclusively, but when we were preparing for our stock market IPO, our stockbroker told us to hive off The Hub as it was a complication to the investment story.
“Since then it’s gone on from strength to strength as an independent business.”
He said that Martin & Co had snapped up Heidi Abbott, now Heidi Shackell, and formerly of HomeLet, who is The Landlord Hub’s commercial director.
Elite, The Landlord Hub’s core referencing product, monitors the tenant’s credit record throughout the tenancy term and alerts the agent to any changes in their rating.
The firm says it is currently in contact with over 25% of their letting agent customers each month to confirm new detrimental credit information about a tenant who previously (and in most cases, recently) passed a referencing check.
Shackell told the local newspaper in Peterborough: “Most providers in the industry describe referencing as a ‘snapshot’ in time, but we wanted to offer more than that.
“Our Tenant Monitor team keep track of the tenant’s credit file for the duration of the tenancy, and alert the letting agent if anything changes.
“Essentially it’s a free credit check every month on every tenant.
“We’ve seen a huge increase in the numbers of tenants entering into IVAs or being registered with CCJs or bankruptcies over the last 12 months.
“So we want to ensure that our letting agents have a ‘snapshot’ that constantly updates itself. We get in touch if there is a problem, but equally we let agents know if nothing has changed too, so our letting agents always have the full picture.”
The Peterborough Telegraph report is here
Comments (6)
Hi it’s Heidi from The Landlord Hub. I wanted to give a quick answer to some of your questions and comments that hopefully will be useful – but feel free to contact me on heidi.shackell@landlordhub.com if any of you want to discuss our products and services in more detail – I’m happy to help.
The Landlord Hub was owned by Martin & Co when the business was launched for a very short time – but now, we operate independently and have done since February 2013. As The Hub was built based on the requirements of a big letting agency chain it gave us a fantastic start point and a good grounding and basically meant we only built products and services that customers wanted – as they helped us build them. We also spend quite some time understand what landlords valued and created a proposition to ensure they felt safe and protected.
We do monitor the tenant’s credit file throughout the tenancy term – we do this because our data tells us that there has been a sharp increase in debt and credit problems in the UK – so we feel it’s necessary to provide our letting agent and landlord customers with more than just an ‘acceptable reference’. We’re alerting our customers to new CCJ’s, IVA’s and Bankruptcies as oppose to single missed credit card payments – we don’t have access to information about specific payment records due of the type of provider we are. Our application process ensures that applicants for tenancy are clear on what they are consenting to (in terms of the ongoing monitoring) from the very outset of the process – and to date we’ve never had a tenant who has raised any concerns with the way this works. We work with Experian, one of the UK’s largest credit risk management and data providers, to ensure the information we provide is accurate, up-to-date and our process is compliant.
The service we provide means we give our customers the information we have access to, so they can decide what course of action they wish to take. We in no way promote the service as something that should encourage the letting agent to serve notice, nor do we suggest this course of action when we speak to them – mainly because we know they’re the experts at what they do and they know how and when to use the information in the best interests of their landlords. We do also provide an excellent Rent and Legal Protection policy, which many of our customers love – but we recognise that some of our customers don’t want to purchase rental protection and we respect their business choices and think it’s our job to still help them in anyway we can to identify risks – Tenant Monitor is one way we do this.
Roger James 62, you don’t say who you work for, so I’m not sure who you’re suggesting we’re competing with – but I can assure you that at The Landlord Hub we spend all our time trying to give our customers more than they’d expect, and doing so cheerfully! So there is just no time in our day to focus on what other providers are doing. We think that’s pretty professional in itself.
Thanks for your time and please do get in touch with me if you’d like to know more.
Heidi.
Its bad enough to have to deal new with retaliatory eviction rules, but this may be seen as ‘pre-emptive’ – the tenants credit status changes a bit and the Landlord serves notice.
Typical garbage from Martin & Co, they really are clueless. Why would any letting agent trust M&Co with their data? Why would any letting agent want to be associated with a brand that from time to time disappears with all of their customers money. Tracking the financial data on a tenant post tenancy start date is useless, what would we do with this information? If the tenant pays the rent in full and complies with the tenancy agreement then there is no problem. If the tenant fails to pay the rent that a rent guarantee with legal costs will make sure the agent is in control and earns fees whilst the landlord gets the rent in full. Talk to a professional referencing provider, not a half-baked franchise firm that tries to compete with us every day!
Indeed, for unregulated businesses the most we can see on a ‘credit search’ is a number and info on CCJ’s or Bankruptancy. Nothing more.
|It would be interesting to see if the outside companies using The Landlords Hub actually conform to the Law and inform their tenants that their payment record is being held by an outside party and sent out to third parties.
Credit Agreements and bank account record held by credit agencies in their small print inform the customer that the details are being held by a third party and may be used for the purpose of supporting other applications.
Also the type of Credit License given out to Insurance Companies does not usually allow them to pass information on to other 3rd parties outside their own industries. Perhaps the Commercial Director could give us details of the Credit License held and confirm that all Agencies have written agreement from each tenant that they are aware their payment profile will be passed on to third parties
So a lettings company that has its own referencing arm that references other companies tenants …… Not to sure i would be happy with that.
Also they monitor the credit worthiness of the tenant throughout the AST ….. If i was the tenant i dont think i would like that. I think somethings should be kept private and if they pass an reference why continue to monitor them? – If they miss their credit card payment will you kick them out??!!