Property compliance is essential.
The hours of admin surrounding it don't have to be.
For many letting agencies, arranging a Gas Safety Certificate, EICR or EPC still involves several separate steps: identifying what's due, finding a contractor, arranging an appointment, coordinating tenant access, checking the job has been completed, chasing the certificate and updating property records.
None of those individual tasks sounds particularly significant.
But multiply them across hundreds of managed properties and multiple compliance requirements, and they can quickly become a substantial part of a property manager's working week.
So, how can letting agents spend less time managing property compliance without compromising the service they provide?
1. Look beyond the actual appointment
One of the easiest mistakes to make is measuring the time it takes to book a compliance check rather than the time it takes to manage the entire job.
Take a Gas Safety Certificate.
The initial booking might only take a few minutes. But what happens next?
Someone may still need to arrange access with the tenant, respond to the contractor, rearrange failed appointments, check the job has happened, chase the certificate and make sure the documentation gets back into the correct property record.
That's where the hidden admin sits.
The question for agencies shouldn't simply be:
“How quickly can we book a Gas Safety?”
It should be:
“How much of our team's involvement does this Gas Safety actually require?”
The less intervention required from the property manager, the more scalable the process becomes.
2. Stop treating contractor chasing as part of property management
Finding and managing good contractors has traditionally been accepted as part of running a lettings portfolio.
But should a property manager really be spending their time:
- Calling engineers?
- Checking availability?
- Sending property details?
- Passing tenant numbers backwards and forwards?
- Chasing appointments?
- Following up for certificates?
A property manager's time is valuable.
Every hour spent coordinating routine compliance work is an hour that can't be spent managing landlords, tenants, properties and more complex issues.
Modern compliance processes should aim to remove coordination, not simply make it slightly quicker.
3. Take tenant access out of the middle
This is another major source of hidden administration.
The agency contacts the tenant.
The tenant replies.
The agency contacts the contractor.
The contractor suggests a time.
The agency goes back to the tenant.
The tenant can't make it.
And around you go.
For a single property, it's annoying.
Across a large portfolio, it's a process problem.
Where possible, letting agents should look for systems and service providers that can coordinate access directly with tenants, while still keeping the agency informed.
The property manager shouldn't need to act as the messenger between two people who ultimately need to arrange an appointment with each other.
4. Bring compliance into one place
Gas Safety Certificates.
EICRs.
EPCs.
Boiler services.
PAT testing.
Different services can easily mean different contractors, different email chains, different certificates and different renewal dates.
That fragmentation creates work.
A centralised approach gives property managers better visibility over what is due, what's been ordered, what's in progress and what's complete.
More importantly, it reduces the number of separate processes the team has to remember.
That's exactly what we've focused on with Symple.
Letting agents can manage essential property services through one platform, while Symple handles much of the administration happening behind the scenes.
5. Make booking the beginning AND end of the property manager's job
This is the standard agencies should be aiming for.
A compliance requirement becomes due.
Click. Order. Done.
The rest shouldn't require endless involvement from the property manager.
With Symple, agents can order services including Gas Safety Certificates, EICRs, EPCs and boiler services.
We handle contractor allocation and tenant access, and completed certification is returned through the platform.
For agencies using supported CRM integrations, services can also be ordered as part of their existing workflow.
The goal is simple:
Your team orders the job. Someone else handles the admin.
And Symple is completely free to use — there are no subscription or setup costs.
6. Measure property management time, not just supplier price
It's tempting to compare compliance providers based entirely on the price of the certificate.
But there's another cost agencies should consider:
What does arranging that certificate cost your business in staff time?
Imagine one option costs slightly less but requires your property manager to arrange access, chase the engineer and collect the documentation.
Another requires virtually no internal administration.
The true cost difference may look very different.
This becomes even more important as an agency grows.
Saving five or ten minutes once isn't transformational.
Saving it repeatedly across hundreds or thousands of jobs can be.
How much time could your agency save?
There's no single answer.
Every letting agency operates differently.
Some have highly streamlined processes. Others have excellent processes that have simply become more complicated as their portfolio has grown.
And that's exactly why we've launched:
10 Minutes with Tom
Tom works with hundreds of letting agents and landlords and spends his days seeing how agencies manage compliance in the real world.
He knows the contractor headaches.
The tenant-access back-and-forth.
The certificate chasing.
And he sees the clever ways other agencies are making all of it easier.
Give Tom 10 minutes. He'll see if he can give you some time back.
Tell him how your agency currently arranges its compliance checks and he'll share practical ideas that could make the process quicker and easier.
You don't need to think your existing process is bad.
It might be brilliant. Tom might still know a shortcut.
And if Symple can take some of the work off your team's hands, he'll show you how.
10 minutes. Completely free. No obligation.
And if Tom can't find a way to save your team time? Dinner's on us.