This week on WealthTalk, Tina Walsh, CEO of NAPSA Ltd., shares her journey from property sourcing to financial independence and her experience as a best-selling author. She highlights the importance of compliance in the industry, distinguishes between property sourcing and deal packaging, and underscores prioritising investors' needs. Tune in for valuable insights and practical tips!
This week on WealthTalk, we welcome Tina Walsh, CEO of the National Association of Professional Sourcing Agents (NAPSA) Ltd.
NAPSA is a recognised trade body supporting UK Sourcing Agents with guidance, training, and a unique search tool to help investors find compliant and credible sourcers, ensuring a safer investment environment.
Tina shares her journey from starting in property sourcing in 2012 to achieving financial independence and becoming an Amazon No.1 Best Selling Author with her book "Property Sourcing Compliance: How to Stay the Right Side of the Law".
In the episode, we dive into the importance of compliance, the difference between property sourcing and deal packaging, and the benefits of being registered with NAPSA.
Tina emphasises the necessity of putting the investor first, creating win-win relationships, and building trust. She also provides a checklist of essential questions to ask when working with property sourcers.
Tune in for insights into the future of property sourcing in the UK and practical tips to ensure safer investments.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
>> Learn How to Work Safely With UK Sourcing Agents [Free Webinar]
>> Seach For Credible, Compliant Property Sourcers
Christian Rodwell (00:02.018)
purpose of Wealth Talk is to educate, inform and hopefully entertain you on the subject of building your wealth. Wealth Builders recommends you should always take independent financial, tax or legal advice before making any decisions around your finances. Today's episode is brought to you by Wealth Builders Membership, a proven step -by -step process that helps you achieve financial security within two to three years. find out more, head to wealthbuilders .co .uk forward slash membership.
Welcome to this week's episode of Wealth Talk. My name is Christian Rodwell, the membership director for Wealth Builders, joined today by our founder, Mr. Kevin Whelan. Hello, Kevin. Hi, Chris. Good to be with you again on a very interesting subject today, I think. Our guest today is Tina Walsh, founder of Napsa, and they provide sourcing agents across the UK with support, guidance and access to training, and also provide a really valuable tool where investors can search for sources in their
And she's bringing compliance to the property industry where sourcing has perhaps gone a little bit under the radar over previous years. And she's using her background to make things compliant for all involved. Compliance is never a sexy subject, isn't it? I don't think our podcast editor is going to get some sexy images of compliance. But nonetheless, it's so critical for everybody concerned, not least if you're in her...
kind of area of expertise around property. So you've got buyers and sellers and in every respect then, it's putting together two people and therefore you have to have rules and responsibilities. And I think where an industry is not formally regulated, like let's say the IFA industry's regulated, the consumer credit industry is regulated, the crowdfunding industry is regulated. Many industries have that regulation
those people who operate within, must comply and it's an integral part of what they do, it's in their DNA. But I think in property there's no formal requirements other than having codes of conduct and, but anybody could set themselves up as a source, a deal packager, whatever language they might use. But nonetheless, when you're putting buyers and sellers together, you've got legal obligations.
Christian Rodwell (02:28.278)
And I think she does an able job of mentioning that. I think perhaps when we're listening to what she has to say about property, maybe we can talk about why compliance actually overlaps with every pillar of building wealth. Every aspect of wealth has got legal requirements and we must follow them and we must be aware of what our obligations are because unwitting, and I didn't know that, it's not an excuse. You know, you get caught.
you can be fined and some people in different areas, whether it's FCA or HMRC, can fine you and they shoot and ask questions later. let's heed what she says, recognize is really, really important and see if we can put a wider spin on that when we listen to Tina.
Absolutely. And whilst we're focusing on property sources today, we know that our members have this challenge in all areas of finding professionals that they can trust to work with. Hence the reason why we've just recently launched the Wealth Hub. So our black book of contacts that have been built up over the years now in one place, making it easier for our members to reach out and work with those good people that we know. Really important. And whenever you're building wealth, you want to get there faster, safer and more enjoyably. And the fastest way
to not make mistakes is learned from other people's. And what we found within the hub is we've got excellent people as far as we're able to assess. We're not compliance experts and everything, nor should we. We let our members tell us their experience with people in the hub, but we've done our best to assess their experience, their credibility, their resonance with us and our message, and their willingness to give above and beyond.
to our members in form of a benefit, an enhancement, a discount of some kind to enable those who are interested in that service to get some value. Where would people check that out, Chris? Heading to the Wealthbuilders website, wealthbuilders .co .uk, and there's a button for the Wealth Hub on the homepage. Great. Okay, so Tina is going to share with us a checklist of questions that you need to ask anybody if you're thinking about working with them as a property sourcer. So get your notepads at the ready.
Christian Rodwell (04:47.139)
Let's head on over now to our conversation with Tina
My guest today is Tina Walsh, CEO of National Association of Professional Sourcing Agents, known as NAPSA. And NAPSA was founded in 2021. Tina, welcome to Wealth Talk today. How are you? I'm very well, thank you. And thank you very much for the invitation to be with you and chat today. You're very welcome. It's an important topic. We have many of our members who are involved in property.
And a number of those may have worked with property sources, but we're going to talk in detail today about some of the regulation around property sourcing and how that works on both sides. So first of all, tell us what is NAPSA? NAPSA is now the recognised trade body for the property sourcing and deal packaging sector. As you say, we set it up and started it in 2021. And the idea behind NAPSA is to provide a go -to platform for sourcing agents for guidance, support,
access to quality discounted training and for us to be able to keep them as up to date as possible on changes in legislation regulation and more importantly the interpretation of that. So NAPSA is actually in partnership with both of the government approved redress schemes, that's the Property Ombudsman and Property Redress Scheme or TPO and PRS is much easier to say. We also work very very closely with HMRC's anti -mildering team.
as well as Encelad, which is easier to say than National Trading Standards Estates and Lettings Agents team, which are basically other supervisory bodies for the estate agency or the property sales and purchases market. And so Natsa isn't just a trade body whereby you sign up, pay a fee, get a logo and go off and declare how wonderful and how professional you are. Natsa actually carries out 25 point
Christian Rodwell (06:44.614)
on all of our agents. So when they join us, they pay a fee, they go into a registration process, they upload all of their compliance information, all the documentation, fulfil a profile, we then review it. If it's great, they get approved. If it's not so great, we give them a bespoke personalised report and we hand hold them one on one to get them approved.
The one thing that NAPSA wants is for sourcing agents to be professional, legal and ethical and to work through NAPSA to provide a safe place for investors. As I said before, we're not just a trade body. The site is actually a search platform as well for any investor anywhere in the world to find a NAPSA approved sourcing agent. And they can come to the site completely free of charge, search geographically and by strategy, find a list of the agents that fulfill their criteria.
and then select them each in turn to have a look at their profiles and decide from the profiles as to which one or all of them they want a message which they can do directly from the site, so I say completely free of charge. We don't charge the investor at any stage. The sourcing agent pays an annual fee of £195 plus VAT for a whole year and for that they get their advertising profile on the site. We do advertising spotlights.
We give them marketed branding packs, all sorts of different things that we support them with, as well as a community for them to join, talk to each other, support each other, co -sourced with each other because they're public applied sourcing agents. And the NAPSA team are in there to share experiences from those of us that are more experienced in the sourcing sector to those that are grants banking and coming through and wondering what to do next. What was your reason for setting NAPSA up Tina? What's your background and how did you get into property sourcing yourself?
My background from leaving school was actually the police. I joined the police from leaving school at a very young age of 16, 17 as a police cadet. And I worked in the police force for over 14 years. But sadly, I had to leave because I was injured on duty and had to find something else to do. From there, I did all sorts of different things from working in tile shops to trading on Forex and selling books on Amazon to working with a speech and language therapist
Christian Rodwell (09:04.202)
retraining in data, database development, project management. And finally fell into the healthcare sector where I worked in healthcare for a number of years as operations manager for a large -ish North West company. And then there went into acquisitions and mergers in healthcare, which is kind of sourcing. It's sourcing healthcare businesses that want to sell and finding a buyer for them. So I have a police background, which is the law, legislation, learning and understanding it.
a background in acquisitions and mergers with the healthcare sector. And we've always loved property and we wanted to set up a business. when my husband retired, we were working together. We got a mentor back in 2012 and he said to us, okay, you've been stunningly investing in property. You're not interested in doing that right now. Have you thought about property sourcing? And I said, what's that? And he said, go off and research it. So in January 2012, that was where it all started.
I spent about 10 months at crewing for our mentor, building relationships with investors that worked with him and learning how to set up a legal sourcing business. I based it around the High Street Estate agent and went up and read all the legislation around estate agency work and built the company up from there. Have you experienced any sourcing, let's say, I won't say nightmares, perhaps the wrong word,
There must be a catalyst why you felt that there was a need to really kind of pull this into shape. guess my background being law and being legal and compliant comes to the fore at that. And I realized operating as a sourcing agent that there was nowhere to go for guidance and support about what laws regulated us. And I had this idea of having gay one -stop shops and where people to go.
Another mentor said to me, Tina, you need to go on the stages and go on the speaker circuit. And I said, wow, I don't want to do that. I didn't want to go and stand on stages and go on the speaker circuit. But he said, if you want to achieve 100 % compliance in the sourcing business, if that's your ultimate goal, there's a process that you have to go through to build up momentum as to how well you're known within the sector and what you're known for. And part of that is going on the speaker circuit. So I went on the speaker circuit from about 2014, about 10 years now.
Christian Rodwell (11:27.918)
And then the next step was writing the book, which I did back in 2016, over to 17, published in October 2017. It's no longer available to purchase from us because it's out of date now, but I can't stop people telling you secondhand. And we got Amazon number one bestseller and we sold over 5 ,000 copies, I guess, over that period of
And then from there someone said, the book was great, Tina, but we need handholding, we need training. So how about training? Well, I didn't really want to go into training either, but I decided that if I wanted to achieve this 100 % compliance in the sourcing sector, then this was going to be the next stage. So we moved into training. And then from there, I tried to join a lot of other trade bodies in the sector and was rejected because I was a sourcing agent. And so I thought,
Okay, what now? We'll set one up for ourselves. So I had a word with our accountants, with our commercial contract solicitors, and I got in touch directly with, at the time, the property ombudsman at the time, and arranged a meeting with them down in Salisbury, which is where their offices were based. They mainly work from home now. And arranged a meeting with the property ombudsman and sat down for two hours with her and her legal head.
who I still work with, and had a conversation around the sourcing sector and what they didn't know. I created a report for them. They were very interested. And from there, we've gradually progressed where NAPSA has been born and developed and science has been developed. I wrote the Code of Practice working alongside the Ombudsman's head of legals. Both redress schemes have accepted the NAPSA Code of Practice as being the...
standard acceptable for sourcing agents in the UK. And we work together now on the Board of Supervisors, educating others on the sourcing sector and how we can all better work together and communicate in a much better way so that we can get the education out there for sources without necessarily having to try to use a big stick at this moment in time. I found it interesting when we were talking before this. You said typically the PRS, the Read Your Scream Ombudsman,
Christian Rodwell (13:46.41)
And they were used to working with estate agents, but when property sources came along and also perhaps we should define a property saucer and a deal packager if there's a difference between them. But this was new to them and, you know, there's some significant differences that exist. Can you go into more detail around that? Yeah, if you think about regardless of which redress scheme it is, when they receive complaints from a landlord or a buyer,
The complaint is about specific things. estate agents deal mainly with people who buy to live in the property and they may complain that something wasn't declared or the fee from the estate agent was high or something had gone wrong from the letting side of things, tenant complaining about the spending of the property or work not being done. But they have no idea that sourcing agents existed out there who do rent to rent deals, lease option deals, buy to let, service accommodation, HMLs, land development, commercial conversions.
And how are they supposed to understand what information should have been imparted on the investor to understand whether a service provision was adequate or not? And so we've been sort of gradually over that period of time talking to them about all the strategies. I provided some training for the TPO staff so that when they receive a complaint, and it's obvious it's about a source deal, they have a much better structure now to assess that deal with using in one of the NAPSA code of practice.
And we're developing guides on every investment strategy so that they know what basic information for each strategy should have been passed on to the investor in the first place. Because obviously that will differ from a standard buy -to -let to a HMO or for conversion to land development. The information that is key material is different for each of those strategies. You mentioned about the difference between deal packager and property sourcer.
Most people in the sector say that a property saucer is as we operate, I you have the investors first and you source best -sell deals for those investors that are registered with you for the services. Deal packaging, which is predominantly how it's taught in the UK at the moment, is to go out and find a good deal and then go out onto social media and find a buyer for that deal. Regardless of which way you operate, if you think about it, the process itself is exactly the same.
Christian Rodwell (16:06.08)
You are introducing and negotiating the sale or purchase of a property in pursuance of business and under instruction of a client. You're acting as an estate agent, you're carrying out estate agency work. So full compliance applies regardless of what you call yourself when you do that. So let's just get clear then. So as an investor, if I'm playing the role of investor now and I see one of these deals being promoted online, I start engaging
the sourcer, the deal packager, let's say they're registered with one of the ombudsman or the PRS and I buy that deal, what are the potential risks for me as an investor? Well, the first risk is even if they are registered and not all sourcing agents are, depends on what they're registered for. If they're not registered as sourcing agent or an estate agent or a buying agent, they're a course of practice certainly for the ombudsman, if not for
who deal purely with consumer protection regulations. It depends on what they're signed up for for supervision as to whether they can actually deal with your complaint. For example, if you are using the services of a sourcing agent, there is a code of practice from NAPSA that sits alongside sourcing agents. If they've registered as an estate agent or a buying agent, there are codes of practice for those. If they've registered as a management agent,
They've signed up for supervision as a management agent, not as an estate agent. So they can't supervise them for that sector. Does that make sense, Christian? So although they may be registered, you also go check what they're registered for. And of course, the redress scheme is literally just one of a myriad of things that really have to be in place to protect you as an investor from losing cash. What would be some other simple questions that an investor
should be asking a sourcer or a deal packager. Really from an investor perspective, as I have been an investor in the past, you need to know the basics on the ground that that sourcing agent actually knows that geographical location that you're investing in, even that they've actually visited the place would be a good idea. You'll find that a lot of the courses teach people to go and right move and just find a deal from anywhere in the absolute UK and then try to sell
Christian Rodwell (18:24.578)
but they've never visited the area, they don't know the area, they've not seen that property, they just take the images off a right -move advertisement potentially, or they've got somebody else to go around and do the filming. So really, you're paying a lot of money to a sourcing agent for their feet -on -the -ground knowledge of that geographical location, and not just the location, but of your particular strategy that you're investing in.
So if you're investing in Bitnet or HMOs, there are particular regulations, particularly around HMOs. Does the sourcing agent understand the local HMOs' officer's spec required for refurbing to HMO standard that will pass and get license? Because if not and you don't, that is a marriage made in hell, to be quite honest.
And the two most dangerous things that come together are an inexperienced, unprofessional sourcing agent and an inexperienced, naive investor. And then it's just a crash waiting to happen. So do they have the knowledge of the strategy? And you should have before you start working with a sourcer, you should know exactly how to assess a deal for any strategy that you're looking for. Do they know that geographical area? If they say yes, how will they know it? Were they born and raised there?
Did they work there? Did they go to university there? Is that where the parents were based? How do they know that area and how often do they visit? What communication do they have with agents there? We walk our patch and we know all of the agents by name. They know how many sugars we take in coffees. That's how well we know our patch when we want to switch on for an investor and find a deal source. So that's the basic knowledge from the sourcer. You also need to know that they've got adequate insurance in place.
An adequate insurance is professional indemnity insurance or PI. Minimum cover is £100 ,000 with maximum excess of £1 ,000. Now, not all PI insurance cover is made equal. And if it states estate agent or anything other than property sourcing, query that it actually covers them and get them to get an email confirmation from their broker and or the insurance provider.
Christian Rodwell (20:38.424)
that actually they are aware that they provide sourcing services and that policy will cover them. Because quite often they go for the cheapest policy which states a state agent and it will not cover them for property sourcing services. Which means if something goes wrong there's no PI insurance in place to cover. The next thing is the redress scheme as you said and we just talked about. They have to be registered with one of the redress schemes out of the TPR and PRS. There is a cost to that each year.
and they should be registered now as a sourcing agent with both redress schemes with the work that we've been doing with them. You can't in the box to say property sourcing agent. If you're a deal packager, it doesn't matter that it doesn't say that you're acting as a property sourcing agent. Deal introducer or whatever other myriad names that they come up with these days to try to avoid compliance, you are carrying out that estate agency work with the other high street estate agent, your property sourcing agent.
So check if they are registered with one of the two redress schemes and what they're registered for for cover and supervision. The next is Information Commissioner's Office for Data Privacy Supervision. You can go and check on the site, search for the company name. It should bring them up and tell you that they are actually registered. Why is that important? Because legally, we have to hold on you as an investor as much information as your finance broker provider and your solicitor will do.
the money laundering regulations. So a copy of your driving licence, a note of passport, utility bill, full name, full address, date of birth, proof of funds, proof of source of funds. If that source holds them as attachments in their email system and their emails are hacked, that's enough data for you to be cloned. And if there's another person to set up all sorts of credit cards and loans in your name, and before you can stop them, you've got a load of headaches that have to get through to sort it
It's really, really important that the sourcing agents understand the level of data that they're holding on you, the sensitivity of it, and that they're holding it in a safe and secure place. Finally, HMRC registration, which is someone who launder supervision. As an investor, and I speak to investors quite a bit, they might say, I don't care if they don't do due diligence on me as long as the property fits my needs.
Christian Rodwell (22:55.33)
But what if they're not doing due diligence on the seller either and your solicitor forgets to do the due diligence or doesn't do it to the right level? Just because a solicitor doesn't mean to say that they always get everything right. Your sourcing agent should understand all the risks to know about HMRC and money laundering and how to assess for red flags. And they should be assessing you as an investor, whether you're low or high risk, and carry out standard or enhanced due diligence on you, which means manual gathering of data and asking questions.
gathering insufficient ID verification for proof of funds and source of funds and then using an electronic due diligence system to add in certain data to go off and do checks where you can't reach. So that is basically what they should be doing around you. They should also have an in -house complaints procedure in place, which is another requirement. And the reason for that is if something goes wrong, and that's basically what the best woman in world sometimes does, if you want to make a complaint to one of the redress schemes, you have to have gone through the sources
completes process first. 99 .9 % of them don't have one in place. Wow, really shining the light on so many different factors here, Tina. And a search on LinkedIn for all of these different terms that you say sources go under these days will bring up, you know, sort of 10 ,000 plus different, you know, contacts and people. Have there been any recent examples of fines that HMARCIA issuing just to emphasize, you know, the dangers that exist?
was strange, had a conversation about this the day before yesterday, didn't we? And yesterday I found the latest updates of finds from HMRC and I went through the first two pages of 17 -page report from HMRC yesterday, the finds from an laundry. And on the first two pages I found five sourcing agents. But the interesting thing is this, sub -training courses are teaching people to set up under what's known as a SIC code, an S -I -C code on the company's house that isn't.
the real estate SIC code, which by the way is 68310, which identifies you as being a real estate agent and that's what sources should have on. so training companies or trainers are teaching some people to set up with anything other than that, thinking that that will keep them safe from HMRC's eyes. And also if you don't put estate agent or sourcing agent in the title of your business, I don't know, mean, people come up with all sorts of weird
Christian Rodwell (25:21.038)
names for businesses these days, but QF12 or something like that, consultancy or whatever it is. But three, in fact, all five of the companies that I've found so far that have been fined, three of them didn't have the appropriate SIC code on company's house. None of them have the term estate agent or agent or sourcing agent in the title of the company. But HMRC still found them and fined them.
Now of the five, one was fined, I think it was £2 ,300, two were fined £14 ,500, and one was fined £23 ,000 -something pounds. And I can't remember what the fifth one was actually, Christian. But I'll tell you this, they were fined because they hadn't registered for AML supervision. Now some training companies out there are teaching people
set up the company and then do a few deals to get the money in to become compliant. Don't worry about anything else. You're small fry, HMRC aren't interested in you. Well, I'm sorry, but I've got news for you guys and HMRC are interested in you. And the reason for the difference in the excess of the fines, and I've spoken to HMRC about this, is because they check companies' houses to see when the company was set up.
then they check trading records. So the level of the fine is based on how long your company's been set up and you haven't registered and how much you've traded. Because obviously if you've traded a huge amount, the money laundering risk based on those trades is a lot higher. So the fine gets bigger and bigger. Now you and I both know that people come into the sourcing sector predominantly because they don't have the money to invest themselves. A lot of them don't have the money to be compliant.
They certainly don't want even a £2 ,400 fine, never mind north of £23 ,000. I mean, that's going to bankrupt someone. So I think we've highlighted the multiple benefits of becoming an APSA member here. And you said at the beginning there of the 25 -point checks that you do on all sources, you provide guidance, training, making sure that they are as compliant as they need to be. But built upon that, of course, then, is the reputation that they build.
Christian Rodwell (27:42.7)
You know, that leads to referrals, recommendations. So as a sourcer, you know, and if anyone listening now is sourcing or thinking about it, for a small fee to be a member of NAPSA, the benefits will pay themselves multiple times. Well, we hope that that's the case. And the reason why we keep the cost of membership down is because you don't have to be fully compliant to join. You can join not having the money to be able to pay for compliance all in.
and spend that year working with us and then supporting and helping you through all of the steps to become compliant, £195 plus back. And you can actually purchase our training packs at 25 % discount, one pack at a time, as you can afford it. And we still hand -hold and support you through the NAPTSA platform. So you don't have to be fully compliant to join us. We have members now that have been members for two years, and they're still not approved because they're using us as
coaching that mentorship program for that cheap cost per year and purchasing training courses from us as they can afford and then working towards the full compliance and the approval knowing that at the end of the journey they've got a really really great foundation for the business hand -holding support all the way through from us and from the team.
and marketing support. We don't just support around compliance and sourcing. We talk about general business. One of our next webinars is about cash flow. Do you know that you're making a profit? You know, which is a bit key really for a business. Any business, never mind a sourcing business, but how many sources think about it? Thanks so much for all of your insights today, Tina. It's been very, very beneficial. I'm sure our listeners will find that very helpful as well. Apart from joining Napster, what would be your top piece of advice
for anyone looking to get into property sourcing today. Find the maps to website, napsa .org .uk. Hit contact us, arrange a telephone call, have a chat with us. Let's see how we can help you. Thank you very much, Tina. You're very welcome.
Christian Rodwell (29:45.55)
Okay, so Tina shared a lot of information with us there, Kevin. We'll dig into some of that in just a second. Before we do that, let's head to Trustpilot and we've had review this week from Tom. Tom says, I joined Wealthbuilders around April this year and for me, my journey started via Instagram. I very, very rarely look at my Instagram account. So this must be fate. When I was scrolling through my feed, Kevin Whelan popped up and I watched his short engaging
provided my email address, received some extensive wealth builders information, which I read and it explained things so clearly. And I wanted to know more and take control of my financial future. Tom says since April, he's been guided through his wealth builders induction. He's completed lots of the education, attended wealth builders network event in London, where he found other members to be so friendly and supportive, very much a community spirit. And he's looking forward to attending more of those soon.
He's got accountability partner. had his first one hour call with you, Kevin. And he said that was a real treat. As expected, Kevin was very personable, knowledgeable, and took his time to understand my personal circumstances and my drivers. After a few months of World Wars membership, I'm very pleased with joining and I'm excited to see where I will be in the next six months, one year and beyond. It's interesting. When I spoke to him, he said, you know, I never ever gone Instagram. And then there you were.
I'm not sure he called me short and engaging, but other people have. But I think the video was, and he was a lovely man, so it was great to connect with Tom. And wow, I mean, that's lots and lots of words that obviously he's chosen and crafted for himself to say how he feels. And I'm always humbled by those. And I continue to be, Chris, and I like that. But I think increasingly though, when we find that people connect with us, they've seen those things.
or they've seen something that resonates with them. We can't resonate with everyone. That's impossible. I'm sure some people find me short and frustrating, but nonetheless, my DNA is completely unimpeachable. Unlike Mr. Trump, we're all about giving the best value we can and not rushing people into anything and certainly not upsetting people into things they don't need. So enough of us. But Tina.
Christian Rodwell (32:06.85)
Well, I mean, a powerhouse, right? A powerhouse of knowledge. And of course, you know, one of the things I want to mention, Chris, is, you know, we talk about wealth building and being true to your DNA and true to your dynamic. And she's done that, she? She's found a calling which reflects where she was, you know, from a compliance background in, say, the police. And while she's had other experiences, you know, that
true and it's very cool, watch 14 years, 15 years in police force. And I think many people who discover that they want to wealth, they'll often make the mistake of becoming in inverted commas a newbie at whatever they're learning. When in fact, the fastest way to build wealth and the easiest way to get traction is to do things you already know, do things you've already got experience
Do things that are natural to who you are so that it makes it easier for you rather than a pain, challenge, a struggle, because you feel, this is too hard work, because I've got to learn loads of stuff before I can take even the first step. This way you can see that she learned a lot, but was picking up on her background and experience before. And fair play to her, and she's done an outstanding job. And I think that's true that many people who come into...
The world of property, the world of business, the world of wealth need to pay more attention to compliance because it's very easy to try and make a shortcut that's actually not right. that's true in every wealth building pillar, Chris, from home equity or home capacity all the way around. You know, all the pillars from pensions, investments, property, business, intellectual property and joint ventures. So many different ways where compliance
becomes relevant. I remember, made me laugh when one of our members, Chris, it inadvertently ripped off. I wouldn't say ripped off, but was using my IP, right? With the pillars and everything. And then we discovered it and we reached out and rather than get cross and slap some kind of notice, you know, we just said, look, you know, we'll collaborate with you, you know, we're happy you love our IP, but don't steal anybody's IP and
Christian Rodwell (34:29.72)
pass it off as your own. And similarly, if you've got a mortgage and then you rent out a property, you know, declare that. Don't do things that are wrong. The pain of getting caught undermines your reputation, undermines your profit, and in the end will, could devastate your business. And I think some of those fines that Tina mentioned, you why, Walton, really? For people, probably not bad people, they just thought I'll shave a bit off the costs.
which is usually where it comes in, isn't it? I don't really want to pay for that registration fee or for that license fee. And these sort of compliance fees are integral to run every business compliantly. And the worst one I see, Chris, is people raising money from private investors, where they don't realize that any form of raising money from a private investor is being an investment company. And you have to follow the compliance rules of FCA.
That's another one of those acronyms that people use and Tina used a few, didn't she? And quite rightly because they're in our industry and sometimes it's hard and can be slightly impenetrable sometimes when there are too many acronyms to learn. But the FCA, the Financial Conduct Authority, well known to me as a qualified IFA and I've lived 30 years under that regulation. Chris, before I became
regulated by the FCA, I had hair. Well, we got back some time. It's long gone. Following compliance, joking apart, is a serious issue. And if you're raising money from private investors, and I see it, I saw an advert on LinkedIn the other day, wanted private investors. You can't do that. You know, if you do that and you get caught, you're going to be fined. It's just not worth doing that. So compliance is an important part of it. And I thank Tina.
for sharing what she had to share. And maybe we'll dip into compliance every now and again, just to make sure that people realize that wealth building is fun, but you've to do it the right way. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a good point to make there about you've got to know yourself and Tina knows herself. She knows what she's good at. And she also understood that in order to build that business, she had to start building her personal brand, pushing herself.
Christian Rodwell (36:48.374)
outside of her comfort zone. And she talked about going out and speaking at property events across the UK, writing a book as well, but positioning herself as the expert, as she is, in order to help, you know, build the brand. Yeah, in fair play to her and I applaud her for it. Okay. So you mentioned at the beginning about touching around due diligence around all of the pillars. Are there any other pillars? You talked about joint ventures there, raising finance, any other pillars that come to mind, Kevin? Well, pensions for sure.
Right, because we often see the pension pillar, is probably the bedrock of people's retirement plans in the UK. We know 95 % of the population almost rely upon them as their source of retirement income. And many of them, they discover the world of SAS, for example, which is much more free, much more entrepreneurial. But they can be tempted to break the rules there as well.
You know, so there are regulations about where residential property fits in and where it doesn't, where lending to third parties comes in and where it doesn't. So you need to be compliant. And this is why our co -director, Paul Brooks, an outstanding job of creating a truly impressive training arena, all CPD quality. So we can train lawyers, we can train accountants
come to learn of these things, it's an overlap, the status is an overlap, it's a trust fund really, between the world of pension, the world of investing, the world of trusts, and the world of property, and all of those things overlap and there are compliance issues all over, so Paul's very good at making those compliant rules easy to follow, and giving people tests to make sure that they are following those rules. They're not onerous, they never are
but you can't fall foul with them because if you do again, you've got HMRC and HMRC don't allow you to make a mistake and plead ignorance. You just can't do it. You'll get fined. And if you get fined on a SaaS, because you do it wrong, it's 55 % if you're fined. You couldn't possibly make that up. So why would you even go near the risk? So stay on the right side of the fence when it comes
Christian Rodwell (39:07.37)
using your pension for investment purposes and property purposes and business purposes. And we'll show you how to do that. And I mean, many people who create a SaaS, they do it on the cheap. They don't get the guidance. They don't get the help. And because they've never driven a vehicle, know, SaaS is vehicle. It's a trust fund. It's a vehicle. And they've always been in the back seat. Somebody else is choosing the investments or they get in the passenger seat, like in a sip, and they start to say, I think I'd like to do that or like to do
But when they get into a SaaS, they're in the front seat. And therefore it's really important to be responsible. And while I'm not trying to put people off SaaS, as said, it's not onerous. If you can run a business, which you've got to be complying, don't you, in business. You've got to do reports, the revenue, and you've got to your taxes on time and all those things. Declare your benefiting kind if you've got a company car. All that stuff, not onerous. You get somebody else to help you with it. So I think it's just an overlay.
Chris, like almost like a cloud that sits over everything, but beyond the cloud is where all the sunshine and blue sky is. So, but you've got to get through there and we help as far as we can with all of the pillars, which is why we invited Tina to come and talk to us today. Indeed. And not forgetting due diligence being a key stage of our wheel of wealth, which no matter what pillar or strategy you're choosing to build your wealth, you need to turn the wheel.
generate capital or cash flow and due diligence is firmly embedded within that wheel. Okay, so thank you to Tina once again and do head over to the NAPPS website. Go and check it out. There's loads of free resources training for property related strategies and other things on there. yeah, we will be back with more Wealth Talk. Same time, same place next week, Kevin. Yes, we will, sir. And until then, see you.
Christian Rodwell (41:02.648)
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