Until recently, residential property seemed to have escaped the waves of change that have transformed so many other industries.
For hundreds of years we’ve had a sector in which a feudal landlord-tenant relationship has endured. Just like centuries ago, a tenant is generally regarded as a subordinate to the landlord, who allows a tenant to occupy a property under strict conditions of a lease in return for extracting a rent from them.
This mindset exists across the property industry—the managing agent for my flat in London still sends me forms labeled “Tenant Demands” rather than invoices.