Landlord Law Blog has been around a long time (over ten years actually) and many of the posts people find via search and read are not the most recent ones.
I recently took a look at our analytics program to see what people are looking at. Here are (according to Google) the top ten posts:
1. What is a periodic tenancy?
This is a post I wrote in 2011 and has been our top post for a long time – its even more popular than the home page! It is obviously a question people ask on search a lot.
I’m quite pleased with this post – which is fortunate as it seems to be most people’s introduction to the blog!
2. All about landlords rights to go into their tenants property
This post from 2014 was intended to be the final word on whether and when landlords could go into their tenants properties – but my views were hotly disputed and we had over 50 comments.
I still think I’m right though …
3. Locks and keys – what are tenants rights?
This is an old post from 2010 but still gets the views. I have written about this topic several times since, most recently here.
It is obviously a very emotive issue dealing as it does with people’s privacy and rights within their home.
It also features a picture of a young lady wrapped only in a towel, but I am sure that has nothing to do with its popularity …
4. What can you do if your tenant JUST WON’T GO!
I quite enjoyed doing the picture for this one which has a caption on it – a bit of a technical feat for me back in May 2011.
The popularity of this post probably reflects the frustration of landlords who serve notices but STILL the b-gg-rs won’t leave.
5. If you want free tenant legal advice here are 15 places you can get help
I’m really pleased this post from 2014 is so popular as it was written to help tenants, many of whom have big problems but cannot afford legal advice.
Many people write to me asking for help so, as I am not normally able to do anything for them myself, this is the next best thing.
6. What happens if you don’t have a tenancy agreement?
This post from 2013 has been tweeted out a bit, but is also popular because this is a common question. What IS the situation when you don’t have a tenancy agreement?
Well, it’s not an entirely easy question but I have tried to answer it as best I can.
7. Landlord Rights over Tenants Possessions
This is another old post from 2010 and is one of Ben’s early ones.
Another emotive issue – landlords walking off with tenants stuff. Again we have written about this elsewhere but this is the post which gets the views.
8. Without prejudice – what does it mean?
This is not even a landlord & tenant topic and is one I wrote in 2010 when I couldn’t think of anything landlord and tenant related to write about!
However, it was our number one top post for several years although it has dropped back a bit now. Like ‘periodic tenancy’ it is one of those legal phrases which people don’t understand. I hope it helps them.
9. Four Ironclad rights tenants have if their landlord wants to sell their property
Interestingly I did try to write this to be a popular post in 2013 as I remember using the word ‘ironclad’ in the title which I found it in a list of ‘power words’.
So it’s gratifying to see that has had over 21,400 unique views over the past year – even if most of the viewers bounced away again pretty quickly. It is also, of course, an important topic!
10. If your tenants leave owing you money – what can you do to get this back?
Well quite. Mostly landlords searching on this one I guess. Another important topic.
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So, there you are. Those are the top posts. The oldest one is from April 2010 (Bens post at #7) and the most recent is #10 which is from October 2014.
I suspect that the most popular posts are the older ones as it takes time for them to crawl up the search engines – the most popular post from 2016 is #35 – Why do landlords refuse to let to housing / DDD tenants? which was my featured post earlier this year.
To put all this in context, there are 2,548 posts on the blog as of now.
What have been YOUR favourite posts?