How to Manage a Portfolio Without a Letting Agent

How to manage a portfolio without a letting agent

To manage a portfolio without a letting agent, you take on the jobs the agent did: advertising, referencing, compliance, rent collection, repairs and end of tenancy. With a fixed monthly routine and one place to track every property, most small landlords can run several homes themselves and keep the management fee in their own pocket.

The private rented sector held 4.7 million households, around 19% of all households in England, in 2024 to 2025, according to the English Housing Survey. A large share of those are run by ordinary landlords with a handful of properties, not by agents. Going agent free is normal, not heroic. It just has to be done properly, because the deadlines carry real penalties.

This guide covers what agents actually charge, every job you inherit, the honest trade offs, who it suits, and the systems that make a self managed portfolio realistic. The rules below reflect the position from 1 May 2026, when the Renters' Rights Act 2025 came into force.

What letting agents actually charge

Letting agents usually charge in two ways: a tenant find fee when they put a tenant in, and a full management fee taken as a percentage of the rent every month for as long as they run the property. On a portfolio that recurring slice is the real cost, because it is deducted from every property, every month, for years.

The structure matters more than the headline number. Full management is billed as a percentage of monthly rent collected, so the more properties you own and the higher the rents, the more you pay. Tenant find is a one off, often a percentage of the first year's rent or a flat fee, and it recurs every time a tenancy turns over.

Worth knowing: since the Tenant Fees Act 2019, agents in England cannot charge tenants for referencing, admin, inventories or renewal paperwork. Those costs now sit with the landlord. The same Act caps a security deposit at five weeks' rent where annual rent is under £50,000 (six weeks at £50,000 or above) and a holding deposit at one week's rent, whether or not you use an agent.

So the real question is: across your whole portfolio, what does that recurring percentage add up to per year, and could a tight routine plus the right tool replace it?

The jobs you take on when you self manage

When you drop the agent, six core jobs come back to you. None is hard on its own. The challenge is doing all of them, on time, across multiple properties, without anything slipping. Here is the full list.

• Advertising and viewings. Take photos, write the listing, get it onto a portal (usually via a hybrid listing service), field enquiries and run viewings.
• Referencing and Right to Rent. Check affordability, employment and previous landlord references, and complete the Right to Rent check before the tenancy starts.
• Compliance. Gas safety certificate, EICR (electrical), EPC, smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, deposit protection and the prescribed information, plus the documents you must serve at the start of a tenancy.
• Rent collection. Set the due day, reconcile what landed against what was owed, and chase arrears early before they snowball.
• Repairs and maintenance. Take the call, decide if it is an emergency, dispatch a trade, and keep a record of what was done and what it cost.
• End of tenancy. Serve correct notice, do the check out against the inventory, agree deductions, return the deposit, and turn the property around for the next let.

Spread across a portfolio, the work is manageable once it becomes a repeatable rhythm. The danger is treating each property as a separate scramble. Our self managing landlord workflow walks the full cycle stage by stage.

Agent versus self manage: an honest comparison

There is no universally right answer. An agent buys you time and distance; self managing buys you control and margin. The table below lays out the real trade offs so you can decide per property, not on instinct.

Note the final row. Agent cost scales almost linearly with the portfolio, because it is a percentage of every rent. Self managing cost barely moves as you add doors, because the systems are already in place. That is why self management often makes more sense the bigger you get, not less.

The honest pros and cons of going agent free

Self managing keeps the management fee, gives you direct control of repairs and tenant relationships, and means you actually know your portfolio. The cost is real: it is your time, your responsibility for compliance, and your phone ringing when a boiler dies. Go in with eyes open.

The genuine upsides:

• You keep the recurring percentage an agent would take from every property.
• You choose your own trades at your own prices, with no markup on repairs.
• You build a direct relationship with good tenants, which tends to mean longer tenancies and fewer voids.
• You spot problems early, from your own data rather than a monthly statement.

The honest downsides:

• The legal responsibility is entirely yours, and the penalties are not trivial. Fail to protect a deposit and the court can order you to pay the tenant between one and three times the deposit, according to Shelter.
• You are the emergency line. A flooded kitchen is your problem at any hour.
• It takes discipline. Miss a gas safety renewal or a notice deadline and there is no agent to blame.
• It is harder if you live far from your properties or travel a lot.

Who self managing suits, and who should keep an agent

Self managing suits landlords who live reasonably near their properties, have a bit of time each week, are comfortable with paperwork and deadlines, and want to protect their margin as they scale. Keep an agent if you are remote, time starved, or simply do not want the responsibility on your shoulders.

Good candidates for self management:

• You have between roughly two and fifteen properties, clustered in an area you can reach.
• You are organised and happy to follow a checklist rather than wing it.
• You already manage trades (especially if you also build or refurb), so a repair network exists.
• Protecting cashflow matters more to you than offloading the admin.

Better off with an agent, at least for now:

• You own a single property a long way from where you live.
• You travel constantly or have no slack in your week.
• The thought of a midnight repair call genuinely keeps you up.
• You are brand new and want a year of watching how it is done before taking the wheel.

Many landlords run a hybrid: agent on the far flung flat, self managed on the local houses. You do not have to pick one model for everything.

The systems that make self managing a portfolio realistic

A self managed portfolio works when you stop relying on memory. You need three things working together: a single record of every property and tenancy, a reliable way to track rent due dates and arrears, and a compliance diary that warns you before certificates expire. Get those three running and the rest is routine.

Here is the minimum system, whether you build it in spreadsheets or a dedicated tool:

1. One property record per home. Address, rent, mortgage, due day, current tenant, tenancy dates, and links to the agreement and certificates. One source of truth, not five files.
2. A rent due tracker. A rolling view of what is due in the next 30 days, marked off as it lands, so a missed payment is obvious within a day. Our guide to tracking rent due dates covers this in depth.
3. A compliance diary. Renewal dates for every gas certificate, EICR, EPC and insurance, with a reminder weeks ahead, not on the day they lapse.
4. A repair log. Date, property, issue, trade, cost and status. This doubles as your maintenance history and your evidence at check out.
5. A document store. Tenancy agreements, inventories, certificates and correspondence, filed per property so you can find anything in seconds.

This is the kind of admin that spreadsheets handle until you hit four or five properties, then start to creak. A tool like Build & Let pulls the whole portfolio into one workspace, with rent due tracking, occupancy, monthly profit (rent minus mortgage) and document storage per property, plus a daily check that flags rent due so nothing relies on memory.

Handling the parts people fear

The three things that put landlords off self managing are chasing rent, emergency repairs and evictions. All three are manageable with a plan made in advance, while you are calm, rather than improvised in the moment. Decide your process now and the fear mostly disappears.

Chasing rent

Prevention beats chasing. Insist on a standing order on a fixed due day, then reconcile every payment against what was owed. If a payment is late, a same day polite reminder catches most cases (genuine slip ups and bank glitches). Keep every reminder in writing. If arrears build, you have a clear, dated record and you have acted early, which is what counts later.

Emergency repairs

Define "emergency" before you need to. A burst pipe, total loss of heating in winter or an electrical fault is an emergency; a dripping tap is not. Keep a short list of trusted trades who answer the phone, share it with tenants for genuine emergencies, and log every job with its cost. If you also run building work, you likely have this network already.

Evictions

This is the part that changed most. Section 21 "no fault" evictions were abolished from 1 May 2026 under the Renters' Rights Act 2025, and assured shorthold tenancies converted to periodic assured tenancies. To regain possession you now need a valid ground, such as serious rent arrears or selling the property, and you must follow the correct procedure. Good record keeping is your foundation: dated arrears history, served notices and correspondence. For anything contested, take proper legal advice rather than guessing.

Frequently asked questions

How many properties can one person self manage?

There is no fixed limit, but most landlords comfortably self manage up to around ten to fifteen properties with good systems, especially if they are clustered geographically. Beyond that, you either bring in help or lean harder on software. The constraint is rarely the number of doors; it is how organised your tracking is.

Will I save money by self managing?

Usually yes, because you keep the recurring management percentage an agent takes from every property every month. The saving is offset by your time and any tools you use, but those costs barely rise as you add properties, while agent fees scale with the portfolio. The bigger your portfolio, the larger the saving tends to be.

What are the biggest legal risks of self managing?

The main ones are deposit protection and compliance certificates. You must protect a deposit in an approved scheme and serve the prescribed information within 30 days, per GOV.UK, and keep gas, electrical and EPC certificates current. Miss these and you face penalties and lose the ability to use certain possession grounds. A compliance diary removes most of this risk.

Can I self manage some properties and use an agent for others?

Yes, and many landlords do. Use an agent for a distant or difficult property and self manage the ones near you. There is no rule that your whole portfolio must follow one model. Review it property by property, weighing the management fee against the time and travel each one demands.

Do I still need referencing if I self manage?

Yes. Referencing protects you regardless of who arranges the tenancy. You can use a paid referencing service to check affordability, employment and previous landlords, and you must complete the Right to Rent check yourself before the tenancy begins. Skipping referencing to save a small fee is a false economy if it lets in a non paying tenant.

Bringing it together

Self managing a portfolio is not about being tougher than the next landlord. It is about replacing an agent's process with your own, written down and run on a steady rhythm. Sort the advertising, referencing, compliance, rent collection, repairs and end of tenancy flow once, back it with a single source of truth, and the recurring fee stops being a cost you accept by default.

If you would rather run the lot from one place instead of a stack of spreadsheets, Build & Let keeps every property, tenancy, rent due date and document in a single workspace, with a 14 day free trial and no charge for the first 14 days. Start there, get your system in shape, and decide for yourself whether you ever need an agent again. For the next stage, our end of tenancy checklist covers the handover in full.