The Guild of Residential Landlords is one of the landlord's associations that operate nationally.We provide the tools and help for you to self-manage your rented residential property in England or Wales. Some 25 - 30 years ago, the association was run in the southwest, including Plymouth, Weston Super Mare, Bristol and Cardiff. Because of this, membership is still considerable in these areas. In 2000, the name was changed and became a limited company called The Guild of Residential Landlords. In 2005, we purchased the Guild after the original chairman retired. Our main aim when purchasing the company was to continue the personal service and advice previously provided and expand the Guild much more online. We think we have achieved this goal, although it seems never-ending to keep updated as technology progresses.
We are also private landlords in our own right, managing a reasonably sized portfolio. Our main subscriber base is what we would term the professional landlord (i.e. renting property is their only source of income), although we equally cater for landlords with just one property. We have assisted many subscribers with cases, including residential property tribunal cases. One example of a critical case would beDoncaster v Coventry City Council, First Tier Tribunal 032/09/00932, 5 October 2009 - approved in the Upper Tribunal 2019. In the words of a subscriber who is also a member of another association:
We use (the other association) for the news and you (the Guild) for legal advice.
I think this one line sums us up perfectly. That said, we're good at getting news out, particularly when there's new legislation or essential case law.
With all the information available online nowadays, it might be asked why someone should pay to be a member of any landlords association. Many subscribers who join us have had serious problems after being misinformed on public forums or using some of the many free documents. We believe there are two ways of making money to pay the bills. Firstly, you can offer the service for free. However, this involves massive amounts of time obtaining sponsors to advertise through the company, perhaps on the website. It also means any outsourced services (for example, building insurance) are generally not as cheap because anybody offering free information needs to add money to these services. We prefer the second option, which is to charge for the service but spend all our time assisting members with their problems, providing advice to the best of our ability, and keeping the website/forms updated.
We will never offer a service we would not use personally on our properties.
We genuinely hope you will consider subscribing to the Guild.
Guild of Residential Landlords