Earlier this year I had a bit of a wakeup call, when my two most experienced property managers both went on maternity leave at pretty much the same time. I felt secure because I knew that the remainder of the team of four (plus two client account managers) had been trained on the legal aspects of their role, as laid out in the technical award for letting and management qualification. Two were fully qualified and four of the six had been with the company for over three years, so what went wrong?

When my Property Management Manager went off on maternity, out with her went all the 'practical experience' which only comes with years and years of managing very large portfolios, which meant overnight that all questions were heading in my direction by the hour. So I did what any self-respecting MD would do, I packed up my computer and decamped to the management office and that is where I have been since 1st March this year, and what an experience it has been.

I have now been in the management department for 22 weeks, and my time there is coming to an end, but in over two decades of running my lettings agencies, I have worked in management a few times, usually for a few weeks, just to review processes and check all is running smoothly. This is something I like to do in all departments occasionally, but usually for two weeks or so, never have I done so for such a long period of time but for some reason this time it really felt necessary.

The role over the last few years has gotten so much more complex than it ever has been before, with all the new legislation on deposits, LHA, renewals, maintenance, Health and safety and continuously changing laws due to new test cases on an almost weekly basis. This meant the whole system of training needed a complete review and restructure, as I realised that merely sending the team on legal training was no longer anywhere near sufficient to do the role.