Which landlords' association?

[andrew cox 46]

Which associations do forum members join and why (i.e. NLA, RLA etc)?  If you are members of several which is most useful and why? 

[Rob D 365]

I'm an NLA member, and romped through their online accreditation just for the fun of it (this being my own, slightly twisted definition of "fun").

 

I'm not members of any others to compare it to, but I've called their advice line on a couple of occasions - they answered immediately and were quite helpful.

 

Whether it justifies the annual fee I don't know. I'll be interested to hear what experiences other people have had too.

[andrew cox 46]

Thank you Rob, everyone likes twisted fun!  How have people found the RLA?

[kevin dempsey 24]

I'm an RLA member, to be honest I only joined as I'm a member of the Scottish Association of Landlords (SAL), and the two have teamed up so it costs me a whopping extra £8 a year to be a member of both.

 

Their magazine's not bad, keeps me up to speed and they had a really good supplement for the General Election on different parties housing policy. Being a member you also get their standard documents, I've used the tenancy agreement and S21. Not had any call to speak to their advice line yet so can't comment there.

 

My only concern is that they seem to be a bit commercial, there's lots of emails come through about courses (none free), mortgage products etc. Up here in the frozen north we SAL members get access to free training courses, and products and suppliers don't get pushed to members. This might be common practice amongst the other associations, but it always leaves me wondering where the balance of benefits lies.

[andrew cox 46]

So I posted the above a year ago and since then and on the advice of two friends joined the NLA.

 

The advantages:

 

They have a handy on-line course for beginners and also for ongoing education;

They are proactive in sending out info on legislation changes, news etc.

They have standard documents that we adapted for our use.

The biggest for us though is that we have used the advice line three times this year with each time being really helpful.  We will continue with membership there as the savings we have from their advice paid for the membership several times over.

 

The disadvantage is that if you don't like the commercial aspect then they sound similar to the RLA with adverts for courses.  We haven't the time to go on them so can't comment on whether they are cost-effective.

[simon allen 144]

The NLA have a free option and I've previously been a member of the RLA. I left because I didn't like the patronising (others felt the same) way of one of there trainers after a couple of courses I did. I would use the NLA again due to their online accreditation.

 

Aslo Guild of Landlords.

 

My question would be what do you want out of it?