Episode 58: Are you Making Tax Digital ready?

Hello, a very warm welcome to Listen Up Landlords with Ben Biddle and me Richard Blanco. A staggering 29% of occupants told the latest edition of the English housing survey that their home had a problem with damp or mould. It's something that many landlords and their tenants will have grappled with. Our UBS law was aimed at forcing the social housing sector to take the issue more seriously, and as the law gets extended to the private rented sector next year, many local authorities are refreshing their approach. We'll hear from a chartered building surveyor on how to manage damp and mould, and about innovative solutions from mould remediation experts, air architect. The renters rights bill is on the cusp of becoming law, and you've been calling the NRA advice line about how to plan. Sadly, lords and amendments on student lets, pets, deposits and shortening the band letting period when selling or moving in have fallen. Team leader Hannah Kenyon will brief us on your calls and advise on next steps. But first, are you ready for making tax digital? Landlords with £50,000 of qualifying annual income from property or other trading businesses will need to sign up from the 6th of April, 2026. They will also need to choose compliance software to file courtly returns to HMRC and one final declaration at the end of the year. For most people, tax will still be due on the 31st of January and 31st of July as it is now. It's complicated. Qualifying income does not include PAYE, dividends all rent from properties owned by a limited company, which are of course subject to corporation tax. Most compliant versions of software such as zero and QuickBooks are still in development. Some small landlords complain that the changes will be costly and are causing a lot of anxiety for people using spreadsheets and simple manual systems. Ben, new buzzword acronym, are you MTD ready? Very much so Richard, as far as one can be, this is about keeping accurate records and making sure you keep track of your income and expenditure and things like that. So in theory, it shouldn't come as too much of a shock to landlords. And one of the things that I'm doing in a shameless plug for portfolio and portfolio plus the NRLA's property management system is actually trialing that. And you know, you may well have seen that we've launched Portfolio Plus that allows you to connect your bank accounts to the platform so that you can categorize expenditure real time. And I have to say, and I know I'm horribly biased and all of that sort of stuff, but it really is very, very good. So am I MTD ready? Not quite because I don't know what provider I'm necessarily going to go with, but have I got my ducks in a row as far as categorizing all of my income and expenditure 100% and that's something that is free for NRLA members. So get on it. Yeah, now HMRC say there's a tax gap that 18.5% of tax may be being lost because of errors in self-assessment that adds up to five billion pounds and they think that regular updates on a quarterly basis could help eliminate that. But of course, a lot of landlords are worried that it's going to be an extra cost and there are those landlords who just aren't used to using software like this. So there's quite a lot of anxiety out there, I think. Yeah, I know I would agree with that. But as any kind of business, probably not controversial to suggest that you need to keep record. And I suspect, the vast, vast majority of responsible landlords do exactly that. Now, not everybody is going to be welcoming, doing quarterly returns with open arms. And I think we have to be honest that if HMRC expect such a significant amount of revenue to be created from this, it probably will cost some people if they are not doing things correctly. And that's why we would always recommend working with an appropriate accountant who does this day to day. What NRLA is trying to do is to we're not going to be able to change what's what's coming down the track. MTD is coming. It comes in in phases as we talk about later. But this is about offering just a straightforward solution to get your administrative house in order. And you can do that as part of your membership. So I really would encourage landlords to log on to portfolio and start tracking your income and expenditure now so that it doesn't come as a surprise, whichever trance you fall into over the next three years. Yes, I mean, another anxiety is that it's going to be quarterly returns and it could lead to quarterly tax payments, of course. Some taxpayers would argue that's a good thing because it might mean the government has to borrow more and will have better cash flow. But you know, landlords may be frustrated that they're having to kind of get their tax payments together and pay them more more frequently and there could then be errors that have to be accounted for at the end of the year. Do you think we're looking at quarterly tax payments long term? Well, I don't know that we would be looking at quarterly tax payments in the longer term, but I guess it's difficult to argue, isn't it? Because people should pay the right amount of tax. Obviously, we want the tax environment to be as supportive to the private rented sector as possible so that it continue to do the outstanding job that it does in terms of providing homes to people. But that's a different argument. What's coming down the track is is almost upon us and so whether we like it or not, you know, we're not going to be advising anything other than compliance and making sure that you are up for the challenge and this is where products like Portfolio really come into their own. It's about making life as easy for members as possible, even if the politics around it doesn't make it terribly easy. Yes, that's true. That has to be put to one side really, we all have to pay our tax bill when it's one of the two big certainties in life. And I know what the other. Yes, I'm actually in favour of doing my tax stuff in kind of April and May and I look rather smuggly at my friends. Oh, 29th of January. Well, I know we've got an esteemed guest on here, but you are well-organised, are you Richard? You're not one of these people that stays up until, you know, 1130 on the 31st of January then. I wouldn't want to judge them that harshly. But yes, yes, I like to try to do early. I like to go on my summer holiday knowing how much tax I want to pay. That's always been what I've thought. Who does to you? Anyway, here to answer some of our questions is HMRC's Director General for Customer Strategy, Tax Design, Jonathan Athal. Jonathan, thanks so much for joining us and I want to ask you first of all, can you take us through some of the nuts and bolts? First of all, just confirm for us what counts as qualifying income and which income is excluded because it is a little bit complicated, isn't it? Yes, so to be within the scope of making tax digital, there are sort of two important criteria, your sources of income and the total income from those sources. And there are essentially three sources of income that we are looking at. One is self-employment income and we know, for example, many landlords might also be self-employed and you know, so we need to sort of bear in mind, it's not just a landlord or just self-employed that there'll be people who are both. So it's self-employment income, your income from UK property and your income from overseas property as well. And it's those three sources added together that determine whether you were in scope of making tax digital. Right, so things like PAYE, income, dividend income, interesting income, they're all excluded, aren't they? They don't determine whether you're in scope, you will have to report those just as you report currently those sources of income but it doesn't determine whether you're in scope of MCD or not. Right, fantastic. Now, I wanted to ask you if there's a deadline for signing up and in fact, there's been some confusion on this I think because some people think they will be auto-enrolled but you do actually have to sign up, don't you? You do have to sign up and it starts in April but I would always encourage people to start thinking ahead and actually some of the things Ben said about sort of getting your records in good order, I think is really good advice. This is a big change. Well, I'm going out and talking to people and saying this is probably the biggest change in income tax in about 30 years so it's a really big change and I think people starting to think about what it means for them, get prepared, get signed up early, signing up should be relatively straightforward but again, if you get it done early, it's one less thing you have to do before the start of the tax year. Yes, it's about karma isn't it and sleeping well at night, not getting too stressed out because people do get very stressed about tax and getting it right, don't they? Let me ask you about software because can you explain the difference between the sort of MTD compliant software but also the bridging software that might be coming in? Will people have to ditch their spreadsheets and switch to things like QuickBooks or Zero or can they still use spreadsheets and bridging software? So we are allowing a wide range of software into the marketplace back to my point that we've got lots of different types of tax payer who will be affected by this. So we're seeing a lot of different software vendors in the market. Some of those are offering those full service software, some of the vendors you were talking about there but we are allowing people to continue to use spreadsheets but they will have to use bridging software that takes the data from the spreadsheets and uploads it to our system. So we are allowing people to continue to use spreadsheets but it will only be really a partial solution because when you come to the end of the year, you will still need to find a way of filing your end-of-year tax return. So spreadsheets are still allowed but there will be some challenges around using that particularly when it comes to the end-of-year. Jonathan, we get lots of questions at our various events that we host and it's very clear to me to see that MTD is starting to be at the forefront of people's minds particularly where they're in the sort of higher threshold. So a couple of quick fire questions if I may. What happens if a property is jointly owned, sort of a husband and wife. Yeah, so essentially we are back to the point about if you're in scope, we look at your own individual tax affairs. So if it's jointly owned, is your share of that property that we look at it in terms of whether you're within scope. Well, we have to give unless otherwise. Yeah, exactly, those sorts of rules. So if you've got jointly owned property, it's about your own share of it. So your own income from that determines whether you're in scope or not. Then once we get into the regular reporting, as we've already talked about or you've already talked about, there's a quarterly update process and actually that's simplified for owners of joint property. So for the standard way in which quarterly updates work, is we get a summary of your all your income and all your expenses. For joint property, we've got an easement where we will ask people for income but the expenses can be done at the end of the year, recognising that it's going to be a bit more challenging for those with joint income. So we heard loud and clear through our consultations that landlords, as I said, with those jointly owned properties, needed a slightly different treatment and we've adjusted our approach for them but they are still within scope of MTD. So they do need to think about what it will mean for them. But essentially, the expenditure side where it's jointly owned is kind of more dealt with at the end of year review, rather than on a quarterly basis. Yes, exactly. And as I said, that was the many landlords many representative bodies put that point to us and we listened and we've made some adjustments to that and clarified that last year. And just to declare a slightly personal interest here, it wouldn't have an impact by not declaring the expenditure until the end of the year in terms of whether that would trigger any quarterly payments, for example. No, so again, we are not changing the payment schedule for income taxes. January and July remains the payment schedule, so it doesn't affect that. Obviously, it will mean one of the things we want to do with quarterly updates is give people a closer to real time understanding what their tax bill at the end of the year will be. And obviously, if you're not putting the expenses in, that's not going to really work so well. So if you're not having the expenses, it won't affect the final tax bill, but it might mean in year, you are less certain about your final end of your tax position because we're only collecting the income information, not the expenses information on a quarterly basis. So don't have a heart attack immediately is what you're saying. No, indeed, one of the things we want to do with making tax digital is give people more advance warning of kind of avoid big shocks at the end of the year of unexpected tax bills. That will work for some taxpayers, but not others. And I said one group where it will be difficult is if you're reporting only income and not expenses, that that's not really going to work in the way it will for other taxpayers. That's helpful. There'll be some folks that also have a larger avail of the rental room allowance of £7,500,000. Does that come into into scope? How is that likely to be dealt with? I mean, that will be dealt with as part of your normal tax return. As I said, its income from property is the income you would put on the existing tax return in that box. That is essentially what determines whether you're in scope, but obviously there will be other sources of income and allowances, which will need to be applied at the end of the year when you file your final tax return. And if income varies above and below the £50,000 threshold during a tax year, how does that sort of play out? The year in question that determines your eligibility, so start with the £50,000 threshold, that begins in April 26. That is determined on the tax year 2024 to 2025, so the tax year that finished this April. And we need that because obviously you don't complete your tax return. Well, obviously Richard is completing his tax return in April, but there are many other people who wait till the end. So we won't actually know people's finalised income for 2024, 25 until early next year. That determines whether you're in scope for 2026. So there's a bit of a stagger in the year. And once you're in and your income falls, your income has to be below that level for I think it's two years after to that year of eligibility and then you are taken out. But if it falls during the year or falls the year after, you are still in because we don't want to be putting people in and out of making tax digital, we want people to be in for a reasonable amount of time. And of course, even if your income falls, you can stay involuntarily, you don't have to leave making tax digital if your income falls below the threshold. And one of the things we'll probably get onto is that threshold is changing. It's from April 26. It's a £50,000 threshold from 27. It's the £30,000 and from 28. It's a £20,000 threshold. And we said that the top of the show, there's two things that are certain death and taxes. What actually happens if a taxpayer passes away during the year? How do you handle this situation? So there'll be a number of things we will have to have to do. As I said, if income varies during the course of the year, that's dealt with on this sort of way in which we'll keep people in for a number of years. But if you stop trading, so I'm no longer in that business, that would take you out of making tax digital within the year. But it's the sort of ceasing to trade element, not just because your income from that business has gone below the threshold. I'm aware there are some exemptions for people, Jonathan. You have to apply, I believe. I was having coffee actually with a friend who's in his 70s, who's really super worried about this. He's never really used software merch. He's a painter and he could just about do his online tax return every year. And I've actually helped him put together a letter. We're not sure if we're going to send it yet. But he wants to see if he can become exempted on the grounds of digital exclusion. How is that going to work if people want to do that? I mean, obviously you can't just say I don't fancy using digital software. It's got to be a proper reason, hasn't it? Yeah, so we recently opened the process for claiming a digital exclusion. As you said, it's not simply for those who don't want to engage with this, but for whom there is a reason of maybe religious belief, maybe disability or maybe a genuine digital exclusion that means they just cannot access or cannot use digital tools. So we have opened that process. We've given some guidance on this, but we're not expecting huge numbers. Overall, within this population by the time we fully rolled out, making tax digital, we were expecting nearly three million taxpayers within scope, so we're only expecting a few thousands, tens of thousands of people to be within scope. But we've set out the guidance. It is difficult to be really clear on on exactly this because it has to look case by case, and we have to look at the sort of circumstances in the round. So it's kind of we've given some areas in which people can claim the sort of criteria we'll be looking at, but it's not a sort of tick box exercise where if you tick these things, you'll be definitely excluded. It's much more thinking of things in the round. How are they doing things at the moment? Is relevant, for example, to kind of what they will be doing in the future? And some small landlords are unhappy about this, because they say it's going to increase costs for them. There are monthly fees for a lot of software. They may have to pay their accountants more money or indeed take on an accountant when they haven't had one in the past. And they're saying what is the point in filing data quarterly when it was fine doing it annually? Well, some of the answers to that you've already sort of touched on in your introduction. Many people keep records, really good records, already using software, already using those data feeds that Ben talked about to make certain that they've got all of their information in good order. But we do see a lot of taxpayers here who are not keeping good records. And that means there is a challenge with making certain we've got good tax compliance. Good record keeping helps people to get their tax right. And that's really what we're trying to do here. And that's why we're trying to encourage people to keep near real-time records. There are long lags in the system at the moment. If you're one of those people who wait still January, it can be 21, 22 months after the start of the tax year in question. So there's lots and lots of scope at the moment for things to go wrong. And we want better record keeping. And I do recognise that is going to be a change. And we are asking people to do things differently. And I do recognise that for some people that will have x-recost or that will mean they will have to change ways of working or change ways in which they've worked for many years. So I'm not going to hide from, in fact, there are some changes here and some of those will be difficult. Jonathan, what would you say the ultimate goal is of MTD? So there's a number of things behind this. It's a very big programme for us. We want people to be using software. We think software digital record keeping is better than paper record keeping, less likely to lose as information. And that quarterly updates encourages people to keep things in real-time. So those are two really important things. But we think the future for lots of businesses is going to be software. Many people, as I said, many landlords will already be using software. And actually what we're trying to do is build tax into that software that people are already using. So those are some of the sort of rationales and kind of where you can see the direction going in the future, greater use of software in the tax system. And you guys will already do collect a lot of data collecting even more. What sort of certainty have, you know, property owners got that their data is going to be safe, particularly in this day and age of heightened cyber concerns and hacking and things like that. Yeah, so it is very important. You know, people trust us with sensitive financial information about their own personal affairs. And it's really important that we protect that information. We've got very good and strong data security procedures in place. We are governed by strict legislation about how we can, how we must handle that data in the fact we can't share it. So maintaining trust in our use of data is really very important, as you say, people will be trusting us with that data. So we're very, very mindful of that. And we've got lots of protections in place to make certain that we look after that data really safely and securely. And how might MTD help landlords? So I think one of the things we're really touched on it a little bit is we hope this will give people more real-time information about kind of where they are, the profitability of their business. We think it will give people more, as I said, certainty for some taxpayers on tax they will likely to be due. And therefore they can budget accordingly. So we hope there will be more certainty from this. Where we've done making tax digital before, we did it for VAT. We also found that people found that software more useful, not just for tax, but for other things as well. Again, just keeping on top of that business and sometimes software save them time. It may have cost them money, but save them time because they could automate tasks that otherwise they were doing by hand. Jonathan Athal, many thanks for joining us. And if you would like to know more, the NRLA is running a new making tax digital course. And as Ben mentioned, the portfolio software is being updated to make it MTD compliant. And there's more details, of course, on the NRLA website. Anne Kenyon is waiting patiently for us at the NRLA advice line. Hannah, the renters rights bill will be back in the House of Commons on the 22nd of October without the Lord's amendments that we had hoped for. And we are going to expect Royal Assembly soon after. I imagine landlords have been calling for advice on next steps. What's what's occurring? Ben, yeah, we've had definitely an increase in calls from landlords wanting to know what happens next, what they actually need to start complying with the new rules and when they need to start complying with the new rules as well. Obviously the key thing to remember is nothing will actually change on the day of Royal Ascent. Once the bill becomes law, there'll be the commencement date announced and then obviously after that point we can then know what's going on. So we're just advising landlords to get organized, review their portfolio, inspect their properties, make sure what their compliance documents are up to date. Look at the record keeping, make sure your tenancy agreements are in writing and not verbal or implied ones. Just making sure that all communication is logged clearly. You can evidence that going back to when it started. And so the sorts of questions are around more about what do I need to do and when is it coming in than anything else? Yes, it's a case of okay, well, it's think across the last section on the 22nd of October and then it's been this from there. I think a lot of landlords are thinking oh, Royal Ascent means I've then got to start getting stuff done now. It's not a case of that's when it's going to come in. We're advising, prepare, you know, got our Renters Rights Hub online with all of the FAQs. We've got guidance, you know, updated on a regular basis. We've also got our training courses as well. Preparation is key. We don't know how long we're going to have from Royal Ascent to actually becoming law. Obviously we've pushed for six months. The housing minister's advised sufficient notice. That's quite a vague timeframe. So we're advising now, you know, get prepared, do your training, get out today, you know, get your ducks in a row so to speak to make sure that everything is ready to go so that if it does come in sooner, they are ready. I know a few landlords who are a bit wary of renewing contracts at the moment, Hannah, because it kind of resets things and if they did need to sell or move into the property, they've then got to wait a year in the new regime, haven't they, from when the new contract starts? So is the advice to just let contracts roll on periodic now, rather than issuing new contracts? Yeah, it's something that we've advised. If they've got a written tendency agreement already now in place and it's due up for a new rule, just let it go into periodic anyway, because it's going to become periodic regardless when it comes in. So there's not a lot of point in going 12 months fixed term now for a new rule. And then in six months time it becomes periodic anyway. Let it roll on, you haven't got to do too much, you know, then when it does come into force, all you've got to do is update them with the information, not have to issue a brand new contract. So unless it's a verbal or an implied, you haven't got a physical written one, just keep it rolling is our advice, just keep going with it. And are we getting landlords that are worried about section 21 specifically, or is it far more about preparedness now? It's a bit of both. So we are getting questions on section 21, or does this mean if I issue one now, does that mean if it comes into force in two months, does it get scrapped? No, we know that they can still apply to court three months after commencement date. So we still have got a window of time, it's not going to get cut off and that's it. But a lot of questions that we're getting is more around in the future. Once it does come into commencement section eight, you know, the new grounds. We've got 36 grounds that we're working with as opposed to the 18 that we have now. So they've double the amount of grounds. And a lot of people think, "Oh, we can't ever get rid of our tenants." It's an indefinite tendency. No, there are going to be multiple grounds they can use, you know, sale of a property, etc. There's a student tendency ground. It's just making sure they are aware that it's not, you know, there's no end in sight. There is options for them. It's just going to be slightly different processes to what they do now. Yeah, I'm much like MTD. It's about preparedness and readiness and adapting to the new world because as we keep saying about the renters rights, but it's the biggest changes in 30 plus years. Well, we heard it from Jonathan Denise that actually MTD is the biggest change as well in taxation for 30 years or hitting us at once. It's all changed, Ben. It's all changed. And at a very busy time, but wishing you some restful and cozy fireside or terminal evenings if you get them. See you next month. Thank you. Now, prolonged exposure to environmental mold caused two-year-old Aweb Ishaq's death in December 2020. It's a very serious topic, but eliminating mold and damp can also be a huge source of frustration for landlords and tenants alike. Aweb's law imposes time frames for dealing with housing hazards and is being extended from social housing to the private rented sector. We're joined by Christopher Thomas, director at Arc AirTech and Larry Russen, who's a chartered building surveyor. At Larry, let me start with you. Thanks for joining us. I want you to actually, can you explain the difference between penetration, condensation and rising damp? Wow. How long have we got? On my training courses, that'll take us about three years. It's really simple, but it isn't. Rising damp does exist, but infrequently, it is in fact very little rising damp in properties. And that's confirmed by research. So, rising damp is moisture coming up through almost little tubes, capillaries, they're called, through building materials, typically brick, that sort of thing. Penetrating damp, there's a little bit more of that, and that will be water coming through walls. And that can happen in solid walls, in timber frame walls, in cavity walls. Most moisture in dwellings is condensation. We heard earlier that there are two things certain in life, death and taxes. I suggest there are probably three things, death, taxes and condensation. Specifically, if you're building, for all sorts of building regulations reasons, was built before about 1995, it's very likely that you will have condensation in it. After 1995, there shouldn't be, but that assumes that it was designed correctly and built correctly, and you can still get condensation. So, most moisture in dwellings is condensation, and really, basically, it's because of the fact that we live in dwellings, we develop water vapor, because we want to eat, and we want to wash, and we want to be warm, and because warm air holds more water vapor than cold air, any warm air that comes into contact with a cold surface, will result in condensation. And I could go on about where the weak points are in buildings, mainly around windows and doors and in corners and edges, but I've just encapsulated in about three and a half minutes, three years of training. Fantastic, that was wonderful, Larry. Thank you. And I can almost hear landlord's shuddering just at the pronouncement of the word condensation. And why can this lead to mold, and how does it spread? Well, I suspect Chris will be able to definitely come in on this with his contractors hat on, but why does it spread? Well, it's spread in part, again, sort of, because of us, but mainly it is issues such as, because you have water vapor in the home, if the water vapor is on a surface, mold spores, and there are mold spores in the room that I'm sitting in, in this 1850 midteris Victorian office, there'll be mold spores in your house. And if I don't keep my office clean, but Lucky Poly came around this morning, so she cleaned the office, very good is poly. Then, then potentially there will be more mold spores, which are able to germinate on those cold wet and sometimes dirty surfaces. So if poly keeps coming in and doing the work, then there's less risk of the mold spores developing. So I can contribute to mold in my office and detail at home, although most of my problems at home are caused by my two boys 14 and 16, but let's not go there. It's a whole different podcast that one. But of course, there are structural repairs, things that might have an impact. You give some examples of what landlords might have to contend with there. Well, again, that's another course, but typically, if the issue is to do with moisture at low level, that could be something as simple as you've built the patio too high, or you've been an over zealous gardener, and you've built the soil up over the damper, of course. But even that is a massive, massive issue. Most of the issues at low level are to do with the fact that walls tend to be colder down there at low level. And any cold surface is more likely because of, let's get into science, shall we? And start talking about the latent heat of evaporation. Basically, what it means is that anything that's cold tends to be a bit moist, and anything that's moist tends to be a bit damp. So at low level, just check stuff like, are the ground levels too high. Other issues can be associated with the openings in walls. And that's pretty much windows and doors, and again, for all sorts of structural reasons, prior to about 1995. In fact, most cavity walls, which generally came in in the UK in about 1920, although it varies, up to about 1995, most cavity walls have got solid bits around the windows and the doors, and that can be an issue. Now sorting those out, and things like the beams, the lintels over the windows and the doors, which are also tend to be solid, that can be really expensive. So don't go there first. Not low level. Well, we've heard about some of the problems, a lot of what we do is problem and solutions we heard on MTD. Chris, tell us about some of the solutions that archaeatec can deal with. Sure. So Laura explained it perfectly that there is multiple ways that mold can form within a property, but furthermore, there are multiple ways that it can spread. And one of the things that sort of often gets overlooked is the educational aspect of molds for regeneration and the fact that molds for is migrate within a property. So our systems and our technology is designed to tackle the molds for element of it. What our systems do is they release an act of cleaning agent, which is known as a hydroxyl. Hydroxyls aren't necessarily anything new. They've actually existed since the dawn of time. They're exactly how our upper atmosphere cleans itself within our planet. Our systems replicate that process. And what happens is a hydroxyl is molecularly charged to find a contaminant such as a mold sport. It bonds to that mold sport and reverts it back to its base elements. So what that means is it's breaking that mold for a part and stopping that mold for regeneration cycle. Some people often I want to say they sort of conceptualize mold from when they can see it. But we've seen first hand from ourselves, whenever we're in properties and we're doing some testing and pilot schemes. Sometimes you can't see mold, but yet you can do a test, which is sort of air sample testing. And you'd be shocked to see some of the results that come back, which would be there's a high level of molds for is within the property. And that's key, particularly when we're talking about tenant safety, because molds for is what we breathe in, molds for is what are harmful to our health, particularly whenever we apply our systems to those scenarios, we're seeing about a 99.9% reduction in those fours within a very, very short time frame. And the way we apply that is with two separate systems. One is a portable solution. So this would be considered your rapid response. That looks like if a tenant reports mold within their property, you can deploy that portable system. It will cover up to 1,500 square feet, so it's one solution per property for an average sort of standard three bed home. Now, we also have an additional system, which is called our fixed arc. It is mounted and installed permanently into the property, which is about the size of a shoe box just simply goes on to a wall. That's key in stopping molds spreading. So this is where properties that may have had recurring issues with mold time and time again, and I can completely understand from a landlord perspective, it sometimes feels like you're just running uphill and you're constantly battling mold coming back. And again, one of the things that landlords increasingly face frustrations with is they'll go out and clean the mold, they'll go out and do all the necessary repairs. They're a good landlord, they do the right things, but mold just keeps coming back. Where our fixed unit shines is once you've done those works, install our fixed system and because of the technology, mold spores no longer get the opportunity to recolonize. We had one particular social housing landlord who had mold recurring in their properties every single sort of 10 days to 2 weeks is high often they were having to go back out to reclean. They installed our fixed system, did their clean, and I'm pleased to say it's not even about five months. That mold has still not returned granted. We will never say that it's a replacement for structural work or it's a replacement from doing the necessary remedial works. What it is is it's very much something that keeps tenants safe and gives landlords that opportunity to protect their work. Yes, I'm slightly horrified, Chris, by these images of colonies of migrating mold spores, but I wanted to come on to this thorny issue of what occupants can unwittingly do to cause damp and how might landlords approach this now. I'm thinking of things like tenants not opening windows when they're showering, not cleaning bits of mold when they see it around the bath and the shower. How do landlords address this? It's a great question and obviously with new legislation coming into play, there's a bit of a gray area there to where it really is now on the landlord to take responsibility when mold is reported. Now tenants obviously can't do things. General behavior such as drying clothes indoors, blocking or covering air vents, causing obstruction to potentially certain solutions that have been implemented by landlords already. So they can do things like honestly keeping their windows open, sort of ventilating the property as best as they can, heating the home. Again, it all relies on them sort of doing things that may interfere with their daily routine and particularly with things such as high energy bills and high heating costs. It's a very tough task to sort of ask tenants to do things now because they're facing so many obstacles from multiple ways. So it's a very difficult question to answer. I mean in terms of what they can do, they can just maybe try and reduce all of that and in terms of some solutions that are out there, there are things that are effective to sort of combat general tenant behavior. Okay and Larry, let me bring you in on this. What's your view on this? I'd approach it from the other direction which is that it's really easy for somebody like me as a surveyor. At sometimes Chris, we look at buildings and we think about lintools and damp-proof courses and ventilation, but actually we're dealing with people's lives and all of those lives are different and all the properties are different. So I'd like to actually go back to something that Chris mentioned and implied which is communication. As a landlord myself, although a commercial property, I've always understood good communication. So if you take the time to have decent communication with your tenant, decent communication with a good contractor like Chris and if you need additional help with a decent architect or surveyor or engineer something like that, you can really begin to solve the problems and just remember you're dealing with somebody's home. It's not, it is a property but it's somebody's home and it's somebody's life. Agreed, absolutely agree Larry. I wonder if a lot of talk about our abs law and the associated enforcement that will follow. Do you think it is going to have a significant impact? I think it will do, but actually most landlords in my experience are actually quite a quite good and they do their level best. A lot of laws are brought in aren't they? To deal with the should we say the unfortunate few? But for them I think potentially the law could be a big issue. I would say to any landlord at the moment, don't just think about preparing, get your house in order now, literally get your house and your houses in order now, comply with the law now. Ensure that all of your tenants are living in a decent home now and then you don't need to worry. So establish your good relations firstly with a tenant, secondly with a decent contractor like Chris and thirdly, if you need it, a good surveyor. Somebody better look in the me ideally. Well, I should make no comment Larry, but Chris, last word to you, you've obviously seen lots and lots of awful scenarios. Give us your worst one in a couple of sentences and how you sorted it out. So yes, unfortunately we've seen a lot of properties within the social housing sector that it's horrifying to be honest and again sometimes and Larry is completely right. Sometimes the landlord is doing everything that they can and it's just an uphill battle constantly. The worst one we've seen is we walked into a apartment block for a large social housing client and we could smell the musty dampness before we even walked up to the front door. We opened the door and it had generally had looked like there had been a fire in the property. It was top to bottom in mold. There were reasons for that which we can't say, but we installed our fixed system in there and come within three days. We had eliminated. It was about 97% of the mold spores that were in the property. Now visually it still looked very bad because our systems don't clean the walls. They kill what's there in your substance, but yes within three days you could consider that property was made safe from an airborne standpoint. Fantastic and I think the advice to make sure that all landlords of all sorts deal with some of these issues as quickly as is practicable I think is really important and today we've discussed some of those solutions. So Larry Chris a huge thank you for joining us. Thank you very much. That's it for this edition of Listen Up Landlords. You can find more information on all of the topics we've covered at NRLA.org.uk and do stay in touch on social media. All that remains to say is a big thank you to our producer Sally Woundsley and to you for your company.