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John's  Personal Profile View my company profile

John Gell
John Gell
Director
2099  Profile Views

About Me

Founding director of Simply Let, working to make renting reliable for landlords and tenants.

A Chartered Surveyor with a background in rural property and estate management, John now specialises in residential property management and letting via Simply Let, an Inverness-based company he set up with his wife and co-director Kathleen in 2004. Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Member of the ARLA Propertymark (MARLA). Member (and former Chairman) of RICS Scotland Residential Lettings Group.

John is passionate about raising awareness and standards in the sector and is focussed on consolidating Simply Let as the Inverness market leader in terms of excellence and best-practice standards.

Away from work, John is a keen hill-walker and enjoys playing in the snow! He has a wide taste in music, as long as it moves him.

my expertise in the industry

Have delivered presentations on Scottish residential letting, been invited to give evidence on PRS to the Scottish Parliament. Co-authored RICS Scotland Residential Lettings Guidance Booklet

John's Recent Activity

John Gell
There will always be a constraint on how much landlords can increase rents because, ultimately, rent levels are governed by the market and landlords need tenants, not empty properties.

From: John Gell 29 April 2019 08:53 AM

John Gell
But do these figures take account of the costs of home ownership, such as repairs, borne for renters by landlords?

From: John Gell 05 March 2019 09:02 AM

John Gell
Charging fees to tenants is indefensible. An agent's client and source of income is the landlord. Charging fees to tenants promulgates poor practice by allowing agents to seek new business on a low landlord fee basis in the hope of making up the shortfall by taking what they can from the, essentially captive, tenant. Low landlord fees attract landlords who are reluctant to resource their obligations, and tenants have a miserable experience. Agents who provide a fully reliable and statutorily compliant service at an appropriate fee rate will attract responsible landlords willing to pay for a professional service. Tenant fees have been unlawful in Scotland since 1988 and the bottom hasn't fallen out of our world. On the contrary firms providing a reliable professional service are flourishing. That's the way to go.

From: John Gell 31 January 2019 17:05 PM

John Gell
Charging fees to tenants is indefensible and shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the law of agency. An agent is acting on the Landlord’s behalf in providing services to the tenant, and the agent’s fee to the landlord needs to reflect that. The landlord is the agent’s client and there is no agent/client relationship between agent and tenant.

From: John Gell 12 October 2018 08:18 AM

John Gell
It would be interesting to know what data underlies these assertions. They are averages and so fairly meaningless to folks who want to know what is happening in their own local market - and Scotland is an amalgam of local markets, all behaving differently. How large a sample of properties was analysed, and was the rent increased while subject to tenancy or when vacant and advertised as available for let? Is that data publicly available? We practice in Inverness and study local rental values on an ongoing basis. We are finding no evidence of rental value increases of any significance. The ultimate test of rental value is how much a property will let for when offered to let on the open market. It is comparatively easy to increase rents for sitting tenants, but unless such increases are guided by what's happening in the open market, doing so is unethical. Given strong demand, then rents will tend to rise. There is a notable reduction however in the number of Eastern European citizens seeking accommodation and this has weakened the market, although our buoyant renewables and life-sciences sectors do continue to attract people to the city. Our own managed portfolio produces an average monthly rent of £731 over a range from £385 to £1400. In our experience supply and demand of Inverness rental property is well balanced, with rental values for well-presented properties rising slowly and steadily. This is a healthy state of affairs, as a rapidly rising market is inherently unstable and likely to lead to pressure for political intervention.

From: John Gell 03 May 2018 15:05 PM

John Gell
Aren't open-ended tenancies, as in Scotland, preferable? They give tenants choice of duration and allow longer uninterrupted term if desired.

From: John Gell 12 February 2018 09:11 AM

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