“Goodlord helps massively with the compliance aspects of the lettings process, especially with the audit trail built-in,” says Russ Blockley, Managing Director at Gold Key Lettings & Management.
The Goodlord platform prompts agents to include relevant details and the necessary documents. “There are a lot of fields normally where, if you were to miss a signature, if you've not given the relevant documents and you can't prove that you've given tenants that document, you could get your fingers burnt if you have any issue on the property or we need to get repossession," says Russ. "Goodlord gives massive peace of mind.”
Another area where Goodlord can help provide reassurance, to both agents and their landlords, is with its Rent Protection & Legal Expenses Insurance. During the pandemic, many insurance policies struggled to continue providing cover, but Goodlord's policy remained in place throughout 2020. "We based our proposition to landlords on a rent guarantee option which was suddenly canceled during lockdown with 14 days notice," says Russ. "Goodlord was the only company that I could find that would transfer those policies over."
Although the insurance was "a selling point" for Goodlord, the agency quickly learned the benefits that the full platform could bring. Gold Key Lettings previously had "quite a few manual processes" in its pre-tenancy steps and joining Goodlord helped them to automate and become much more efficient as a result.
"It's been pretty brilliant," says Russ. "The benefit of Goodlord was twofold. The rent guarantee product got us out of a dilemma with our landlords [by ensuring their income was still protected] and then we have the benefits of the online platform as well, which makes the whole process so much more streamlined."