National Landlords Association Conference

The National Landlords Association (NLA) conference is to be held this year at Birmingham on 20/21 November. I will not be there (having already travelled once to Birmingham, from Norwich, for the Landlord & Buy to Let Show I felt that was enough). However it looks to be a good event.

Looking at the program, the main theme is the future, with talks and panel sessions looking at proposed legislation changes and future trends. The speakers include Ian Austin MP, Caroline Davy of Shelter and Ian Potter of ARLA, along with Simon Gordon and David Salusbury of the NLA. It should be an interesting event. NLA are a good organisation and do a lot for their members, for example the recent undertaking obtained from the Conservative Party on payment of local housing allowance.

Mind you, the NLA is not the only landlords association around, and those in the Eastern Counties looking for an organisation to join may also want to consider the Eastern Landlords Association, plus there are others, either nationally or in other specific locations. However, the NLA is now the largest, particularly after its recent merger with the SPLA.

If you attend the NLA Conference, I would be interested in your feedback, so please do leave a comment below.

Waveney DC's landlord services exhibition

I spent most of today at the Aspire Centre in Lowestoft for the Waveney 2009 Landlords Services Exhibition.

Particular thanks go to Derek and Andy of the Eastern Landlords Association for giving me a lift down there (when Andy confessed to being a Nearly Legal fan).

Those present at the event included the fabulous Sally Chicken, Director of the Rainbow Saver Anglia Credit Union Ltd, Jim Broadbent of Coastal Homeless Action Group, and of course various bods from Waveney council itself.

Huge apologies to any who were disappointed that I did not do the talk at 11.00 (not my fault), however hopefully those who attended the later one found it of interest. Many thanks also to all those landlords who attended and came up to talk to me, in particular the two gentlemen who attended my talk and who spoke to me just before I left, and the software engineer with the funny name (you know who you are!).

I was able to keep up with the email and forum posts during the day, courtesy of the macbook and the Apire wi fi, but there will still be quite a bit of catching up tomorrow ...

Next event is the Landlord & Buy to Let Show in Birmingham next week.