Paul Smith's Opinion if Service Accommodation Should be Regulated

Just to go over from what you said there, episode three of this series was talking about outsource and about working with virtual assistants and how it is so effective. And I think the main takeaway that I'm getting from during this season is there are so many things that people in the service accommodation world can learn from people who run the guest houses, people who have the rental accommodation from the hospitality world. But on the flip side, there's so many things that I believe that people from my world right now, from the hospitality community group, from the Boostly group could learn from sa. And I truly believe that outsourcing, working with virtual assistants is one of the key ones. How do you envision it changing in the future? Do you think this will become regulated to fall in line with a lot of BB's and guest houses have to do to get open, or do you think that it is just going to keep as is? I'd love to get your opinion on this because this is like a pretty big topic at the present moment in time.

Any industry where there are super profits, as profits normalize over time. And one of the ways they normalize is by regulation. So it's inconceivable to me that there won't be more regulation within the next 20 years. Will there be significant regulation in the next two or three? I don't think so because it's not where the government's attention is. They're trying to deal with Brexit, they're trying to deal with immigration, they're trying to deal with massive issues. But they will get round to it because housing and the housing crisis is a big part of the discussion in society at the moment. Now, I'm not saying for one minute that service accommodation is responsible for the housing crisis, but I think it's indisputable that there is a housing crisis and therefore housing as a sector will get looked at. But just to go back to what you said to begin with, Mark, I would teach people that it is actually a legal requirement. I do teach people. There's a legal requirement to register for various things and to do various things. So you're right. I hear all the time, why would you bother getting trained? You can just take your house and stick it on Airbnb. Well, you can. You physically can, but you're breaking all sorts of laws if you do. So, you know, for example, from my perspective, I would teach people that you shouldn't be operating a business without professional indemnity and public liability insurance. Let me talk to you about July 2016. Brighton, you know about this Airbnb incident? No.

Enlighten me.

All right, so four people. So two couples having their 50th birthday party went out and hired this like two bed flat in Brighton just, just to chill, very relaxed and whatever. One evening they went out just to watch the sun go down. You know, very civilized. Gin and tonic, little olive or something. So they stood on the balcony watching the sun go down, balcony collapsed. Three of them fell two stories into the basement. One of them fell one story to street level and was impaled on the railings. Whose fault is that? The operator. Whoever's struck because the owner might not be the person that's operating it.

That's very true.

So if it's a rent to rent, that's your ass on the line. So something I pound, I just mercilessly hammer it into any of my students is you got to be a complete Class 1 nutcase to anything in your own name. If you're not operating it through a limited company, it's an open invitation for bankruptcy, lose your house, go to jail, everything.

Yeah, I thought that was going to be your answer because, you know, it is a big, is a big topic, regulations and making sure that you are covered when people. Because I think the thing about this, if you compare it to all the other industries, whether it's E commerce or whatever, when you're doing hospitality, you are literally having people coming into, you know, your homes. You're in charge of these people. So I think that, I mean, this is a real big sort of takeaway to have from this and from this interview and from your answer is, you know, just make sure that it doesn't matter what you're doing, what type of property that you're doing, make sure that you are covered. You have got all the steps in process and this is obviously something that you teach and this is something that I wanted to move on to onto next. So just give us a little bit of a background about Touchstone, about when it was started, about the reasoning behind starting it, and what you're currently doing right now to help people sort of avoid those pitfalls and how they can have a successful property career.