John Tibbetts prides himself on being a fair landlord. It is a sentiment inherited from his grandfather and father, both also called John, and the family has a long history in property.
His grandfather set up a plastering business in 1928 before moving into house building in the 1960s and establishing J. T. Tibbetts & Sons, of which Tibbetts is now a partner. The family business started renting out the properties it built in the 1970s and still has a portfolio of long-term rentals.
Tibbetts, 80, helped set up a landlords association in Torbay, Devon, 30 years ago. Most of its members own two or three properties that have been inherited from family or bought using pension savings.
“The members are generally very small-scale investors