We’ve built a property management tool for small landlords
Hello Property118 readers: I’m William Harford. I co-founded Harthing with Neil Carthy and Adam Saul.
We’ve built a property management platform specifically designed for landlords with small portfolios that they’re self-managing, and are trying to keep up with the endless stream of new regulations and tax requirements www.harthing.co.uk.
Between us, we have over 50 years in financial services, two chartered accountants, a Cambridge mathematician building the platform, and Adam is even a director of Rochdale AFC. All three of us are landlords who self-manage. We built this because the tools available for someone managing one or two properties without a letting agent appear to have gaps helpful to landlords.
We have tried to build something that is intuitive and helps landlords deal with this increased burden of maintenance, compliance, finances, and documents in one place, everything timestamped and Making Tax Digital categorised.
The idea is that your records should prove you’ve been managing your property properly, and producing that proof shouldn’t require an archaeology project through your inbox.
What’s live when we launch on 12 May:
• Property records, maintenance logging, compliance tracking, document storage
• Financial transactions categorised for MTD from the point of entry
• Immutable Accountability Record — every action hash-chained, nothing editable or backdatable
• Evidence Bundle — one click, full chronological proof of everything you’ve done for a property
• Compliance dashboard with expiry alerts
It does use AI, and it reads your gas cert and pulls the expiry date, so you don’t have to type it. It doesn’t have a name badge, and it doesn’t offer opinions.
I have three questions for readers:
1 – Where do you actually keep your gas safety certificates right now, and could you find one in under two minutes if someone asked?
2 – With MTD now live, Section 21 going on 1 May, and Awaab’s Law on the horizon, do the tools that exist feel adequate?
3 – Did you know you’ve got until 31 May to serve the official GOV.UK Information Sheet to every existing tenant, or it’s a £7,000 fine?
I am happy to answer questions about what we’ve built, and happy to be told we’ve missed something obvious.
Many thanks
William Harford
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Member Since January 2011 - Comments: 12205 - Articles: 1401
4:03 PM, 13th April 2026, About 2 days ago
Reply to the comment left by Mark Alexander – Founder of Property118 at 13/04/2026 – 15:57
Sorry, another one to add to that list is Open Banking and associated automations.
Without everything in one piece of software landlords will soon lose interest and sell up due to the cost of outsourcing financial compliance to their accountants and leaving themselves exposed to the litigation that your current systems are being designed to deal with.
Member Since April 2026 - Comments: 10
4:27 PM, 13th April 2026, About 2 days ago
Reply to the comment left by Mark Alexander – Founder of Property118 at 13/04/2026 – 16:03
I agree with all of this, we have applied for MTD filing with HMRC, Adam had a follow up call with Xero yesterday about their API integration and is working on Open Banking.
However, there is an unavoidable lead time with a number of these, and we took the decision that we wanted to have a functioning (free) MVP in May so we also have the opportunity to get feedback from early users while we finalise the full product, with the full suite at launch (which we are targeting for c.6 weeks after MVP). In some cases, it’s also easier to get approval for some of these things when you can demonstrate you have a working platform.
With respect to our beta users, we’re very interested to hear about some of the other potential add-ons we’re looking at, such as the Tenant app (Letterlea), automated maintenance booking, integration with other 3rd party providers, and so on. This is where it will be really helpful to hear from a range of people to hear what else they want, rather than what we think they want.
Member Since April 2026 - Comments: 10
4:31 PM, 13th April 2026, About 2 days ago
Reply to the comment left by Neilt at 13/04/2026 – 15:49
Thank you Neil, we certainly hope so!
One thing I should point out – if you want access to the free MVP version (and 12 months free access to the full version, if you choose to stick with us), you should sign up before 12 May on the website, as we will be moving to a c6 week closed Beta, after which we’ll be launching the paid full product.
Being an early user also gives you the opportunity to have your say in helping us design the final product to do what you actually want, not just what we think/hope you want!
William
Member Since January 2011 - Comments: 12205 - Articles: 1401
4:32 PM, 13th April 2026, About 2 days ago
Reply to the comment left by William Harford at 13/04/2026 – 16:27
I am seriously impressed, and thank you also for the 5-star rating you left for us on TrustPilot https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.property118.com
I’m also “blown away”!
Member Since April 2026 - Comments: 10
4:43 PM, 13th April 2026, About 2 days ago
Reply to the comment left by Mark Alexander – Founder of Property118 at 13/04/2026 – 16:32
Mark, thank you again. Ultimately, we’ll be judged on the final product, but it’s been gratifying to hear the hard work could be worth it, and especially since we’re 100% self funded, as we believe we should be prepared to put our own money behind our idea.
I’ll keep you posted as we get nearer to D-Day, but will also be checking in regularly to answer any other questions your users may have.
Best,
William
Member Since January 2011 - Comments: 12205 - Articles: 1401
4:52 PM, 13th April 2026, About 2 days ago
Reply to the comment left by William Harford at 13/04/2026 – 16:43
Hi William
When we first ‘partnered’ with LettingSupermarket.com, we assisted them to promote their initial crowdfunding campaigns – see https://www.property118.com/lettingsupermarket-com-independently-valued-3-5-million/
Member Since January 2024 - Comments: 345
5:16 PM, 13th April 2026, About 2 days ago
Why is “We’ve built a property management tool for small landlords?” a question?
Member Since January 2011 - Comments: 12205 - Articles: 1401
5:32 PM, 13th April 2026, About 2 days ago
Reply to the comment left by Ryan Stevens at 13/04/2026 – 17:16
That’s one for our Editors. I suspect it’s because the article was posted under “Readers Questions” and asked a variety of questions at the end.
Grammatically, I agree that the title should not have a question mark at the end.
Member Since April 2026 - Comments: 10
5:40 PM, 13th April 2026, About 2 days ago
Reply to the comment left by Ryan Stevens at 13/04/2026 – 17:16
Reply to the comment left by Ryan Stevens at 13/04/2026 – 17:16
I promise you it’s not because I’m asking the members if we have built the software, we definitely have!
I’m still waiting for someone to pick up on the: “I have two questions for readers”, followed by three questions bit as well…
I will ask if these can be amended tomorrow, many thanks!
WH
Member Since July 2014 - Comments: 54
6:27 PM, 13th April 2026, About 2 days ago
Reply to the comment left by William Harford at 13/04/2026 – 17:40
Hi William, well your site will be a godsend to many, myself included. I stopped being interested once an occasional manageable law was mooted, to my mind, a daily negative media onslaught, akin minefields, designed at every turn to trip, confuse, attack, criminalise at whim whichever authority of the day. I left the NRLA (formerly RLA) because they work with the NGO’s government arm pushing for the strangulation of property ownership and war on landlords. I am reminded of a chapter in Gulliver’s Travels- tied down by ants.
As a small landlord, if your site can make accounting software too, as a self managing private landlord many of us will sign up.