The compliance feature nobody gets excited about
"Do you handle EPCs?"
Not "can you?" but "do you?" As in, if you don't, we're not interested.
Every rental property in the UK needs a valid Energy Performance Certificate. Properties rated F or G can't be legally let. Agencies need to track expiry dates, provide EPC data to portals, and ensure certificates are current. It's completely unglamorous compliance work that's absolutely critical.
Here's the thing though: EPCs are boring but they're not optional. So if software is going to help agencies, it needs to make compliance effortless. This week was about making EPC management something agencies never have to think about.
The government API that actually works
I'll be honest: I didn't expect the UK Government's EPC API to be good.
Government IT projects have a... reputation. But the EPC database API? It's actually well-designed. You send a postcode, you get back complete certificate data including ratings, recommendations, expiry dates, everything.
So instead of forcing agencies to upload PDF certificates (which they'll lose, mis-file, or forget to update), I integrated directly with the government database. Type in an address, LetAdmin retrieves the current EPC automatically.
Does this work 100% of the time? No—some properties have multiple certificates or outdated records. But it works for the vast majority, and when it doesn't, agencies can still upload PDFs manually. Best of both worlds.
##The Rightmove image problem
Here's a frustrating requirement: Rightmove wants EPC rating graphs as images. Specific dimensions, specific colors, specific format.
Most property management systems expect agencies to create these themselves. Screenshot the certificate PDF, crop it, save it, upload it. Multiply by hundreds of properties and you've got a tedious afternoon of busywork.
Why make humans do what computers do better?
This week I built automatic EPC graph generation. LetAdmin takes the rating data and creates the exact image Rightmove wants. Correct colours (A-green through G-red), proper dimensions, government-approved format. One less thing for agencies to worry about.
Is this glamorous development work? Absolutely not. Does it save agencies hours of tedious image editing? Yes. And that's what matters.
When the software becomes your assistant
One interaction that changed my thinking: watching someone change a property's status to "Let" and then manually stop advertising on Rightmove, Zoopla, and three other portals.
Why is the computer making them do that? The software knows the property just got let. It knows which portals are advertising it. Why not just... do the right thing automatically?
So I built "intelligent status changes." When you mark a property as "Let," LetAdmin asks "Should I stop advertising this across all portals?" One click, done. Change it to "Available to Let"? "Want to start advertising?"
The software becomes less of a database and more of an assistant. It anticipates what you're trying to do and offers to handle the busy work.
This is what good software should do—not just store information, but actively help you get your actual job done.
The production bug that kept me up
Late in the week, webhooks started failing in production. Not consistently—just occasionally. Race conditions are the worst kind of bug.
Here's what was happening: property gets updated, webhook fires immediately to notify Rightmove, but the database transaction hasn't committed yet. Rightmove's server tries to fetch the property data, gets stale information, everything becomes inconsistent.
Embarrassing? Yes. Fixable? Also yes.
I added transaction-aware delays. Webhooks wait until the database transaction definitely commits before firing. Problem solved. Tests updated to catch this. Won't happen again.
This is one of those bugs that only appears in production with real traffic. You can't really prevent them—you just have to fix them fast when they show up.
What agencies actually get
If you're running a letting agency, here's what this week means for you:
No more EPC hunting. Type in an address, LetAdmin fetches the certificate data automatically. No more asking landlords for documents they don't have or tracking down expired certificates.
Portal-ready images automatically. Need EPC graphs for your portal listings? They're already generated, already in the right format, already available. Zero manual work.
Status changes that do the right thing. Mark a property as let and the software offers to stop all advertising immediately. No more forgetting to remove portal listings and getting calls about properties that aren't actually available.
Compliance that's automatic. The system tracks EPC expiry dates and flags properties approaching expiry. You can't accidentally list an F-rated property because the software knows that's illegal.
Good compliance software doesn't make you think about compliance. It just handles it.
What I learned
This week taught me the difference between features that sound impressive and features that actually help people.
EPC integration doesn't sound exciting. It's not AI, it's not real-time collaboration, it's not revolutionary. It's just... making a boring compliance requirement less painful.
But boring doesn't mean unimportant. Every letting agent I talk to groans when EPCs come up. If LetAdmin can make that groan disappear, that's valuable. Maybe more valuable than some flashy feature that sounds impressive but doesn't solve actual daily problems.
Sometimes the best software isn't the cleverest software—it's the software that makes the boring stuff effortless.
Next week: probably something more exciting. But the EPC feature? Agencies will love it precisely because they never have to think about it.