Why, After a Year with a Problem Tenant, They Bought a Second Home With Us

Real trust is never built when everything goes smoothly

Six or seven years ago, this family first came to know SJW UK Properties.

At the time, their child was still young. Like many Chinese families, they had always been drawn to the UK, and hoped that if their child were to study in England one day, the family would have a genuine home of their own in London. So they began researching the London property market in earnest, looking for an agency they could work with for the long term.

Their first meeting with the SJW team took place in China. That conversation ran long — covering the London market, the child's future education plans, and overseas asset allocation. For this family, buying a property was never an impulsive decision but a family commitment that would play out over many years. For SJW, it wasn't a simple case of pitching a development, but the beginning of helping a client plan for the future.

They later arranged a dedicated trip to London to view properties in person.

The hotel was booked — a characterful boutique property near Russell Square — and the SJW team had already mapped out a full viewing itinerary, intending to cover every development that suited their needs within just a few days. Then, just before departure, their child fell suddenly ill with a fever, and the entire trip had to be cancelled at the last minute.

Just before cancelling, the client raised a small detail the SJW team still remembers to this day. As the hotel booking was non-refundable, they didn't want the room to go to waste — so they invited SJW's founder, Sally Wang, to stay in it as planned and carry out the property viewings on their behalf.

To SJW, this wasn't just a hotel room. It was an act of trust.

Over the following days, Sally viewed each development in person exactly as planned, recording the aspect, floor level, natural light, views and layout of every unit, along with her own professional assessment. She then relayed all of this back to the client through photos, video and repeated phone calls, so that even from China, they could form as accurate a picture as possible of each property.

The two sides later met again, this time at a project launch event back in China. The SJW team had already prepared a detailed comparison of the different layouts, floor levels and price points on offer, and secured a two-bedroom unit that best matched the client's needs ahead of the official launch. In the end, the client successfully purchased a new-build home near Battersea Park, at a highly competitive price for the time.

For this family, it was their first property in the UK.

For SJW, it was the beginning of a long-term relationship.

After the property completed in 2022, the client instructed SJW Property Management to handle letting and day-to-day management on their behalf. For the first couple of years, everything ran smoothly — the tenancy was stable, the property well maintained, and the team carried out routine inspections, tenant liaison and repairs exactly as a well-run rental property should.

Then the pandemic changed the course of many people's lives.

It was, in fact, SJW's first genuine encounter with a rogue tenant since the company was founded.

When the tenancy began, everything had been carried out in line with standard industry practice at the time. Before the pandemic, it was common for agencies to simplify credit checks for tenants able to pay six months' or even a year's rent upfront. After the pandemic hit, however, the tenant's circumstances changed dramatically. He went through a divorce, his business failed, his finances deteriorated rapidly, and he eventually stopped paying rent altogether — and refused to move out.

For any overseas landlord, this is close to the worst-case scenario.

The real difficulty was never the property itself — it was the distance.

The landlords were in China; the property was in London. When the problem arose, they couldn't get to the property themselves, nor track developments day to day. All they could do was place their full trust in the management team.

Faced with this, SJW didn't simply wait it out, nor hand the matter to solicitors and consider the job done. The team stayed involved at every stage.

They followed the correct legal process throughout, liaising continuously with solicitors, preparing court documents and coordinating every party involved. When the case reached a critical stage, the landlords and SJW jointly decided to instruct a barrister to represent the landlords in court, in order to protect their interests as fully as possible. SJW's founder, Sally Wang, and her partner, John Murphy, were personally involved in numerous case discussions, and went to the property in person to speak directly with the tenant, in an effort to resolve the matter.

The whole process took a long time.

In the end, possession of the property was successfully recovered.

The SJW team immediately arranged for the property to be cleared, repaired and restored, and swiftly brought it back onto the rental market so it could return to normal operation.

From a purely financial standpoint, that year was not an easy one.

The landlords lost over a year's worth of rental income.

They bore the solicitors' fees.

They bore the litigation costs.

It's an experience no landlord would ever wish for.

And yet, what has stayed with the SJW team isn't any of those figures.

It's something the landlord said once the case was finally closed.

He said: "If this hadn't happened, we might have always just been client and estate agent to each other."

He paused, then added with a smile: "Yes, we lost some rent this year, and took on some costs — but we really got to know Sally, and we really got to know John. More importantly, we came to understand how SJW actually operates."

"Looked at another way — we lost some rental income, but we gained people we can trust for the long run."

To SJW, that sentence meant more than any thank-you ever could.

Because what an overseas landlord truly fears was never the property itself. It's whether, when something goes wrong thousands of miles away, there's anyone genuinely willing to stand on their side.

Years later, that trust faced a second test.

In 2025, the family visited London for the first time, finally seeing their first UK property with their own eyes, and visiting the SJW office to meet the whole team in person. They also travelled on to several other European countries, gaining a firsthand sense of life in the UK and Europe more broadly.

Back home, they began seriously planning their next move.

As their child grew older, they wanted to acquire a second, higher-end home genuinely suited to long-term family living. This time, they carefully weighed up two options: the United States and London.

They were well aware that property prices in parts of the US had risen sharply in recent years. London's market, by contrast, had been comparatively steady since the 2016 Brexit referendum, with some periods even seeing price corrections. Judging purely by recent performance, the US appeared to offer stronger returns.

But in the end, they chose London.

In a later conversation with the SJW team, they explained their thinking.

A genuinely long-term asset, they said, shouldn't be judged solely on how much it had appreciated in the past few years, but on whether the city it sits in holds irreplaceable long-term value. London, as one of the world's most established global cities — particularly in its central districts — has extremely limited land supply, with many locations that simply cannot be replicated. Short-term markets fluctuate, but land scarcity doesn't change, and a city's standing within the global finance, education, legal and cultural systems isn't easily undone by a single market cycle. Rather than chasing whichever market happened to be rising fastest in the short term, they preferred to place a major long-term family asset in a city whose underlying value was more stable.

That, of course, wasn't the whole story.

They told the SJW team candidly that choosing the US would mean starting over — getting to know a new team, a new company, and building trust from scratch all over again. That wasn't just a matter of time; it would also mean re-establishing ways of working and communicating with someone new, every time an issue arose.

In London, none of that needed to start over.

They said: "Over the years, we've already been through the hardest of times together. We know how SJW handles problems, and we know your attitude when things get difficult. Real trust isn't built over a few meetings — it's built up gradually, through solving problems together again and again. Now that we've found people worth working with for the long haul, we'd rather put our future in your hands."

In 2026, the family once again purchased through SJW UK Properties — this time a high-end residence near St James's Park. Once the property completes, they plan to spend time living in London as a family, giving their child a chance to settle into life here early, while also using the move to build closer ties between their business and the UK.

Many would say SJW simply helped a client complete two property purchases.

But for SJW, what truly matters in this story was never the two transactions themselves.

The first property marked the beginning of a working relationship.

The second was a choice that trust made naturally, once it had been tested by time, hardship and shared experience.

At SJW UK Properties, we've always believed that an estate agency's real value isn't limited to helping a client complete a single transaction. It lies in standing by clients for years afterwards — through market shifts, policy changes, letting difficulties and changes in life circumstances — and helping them make the right property decisions, whatever comes.

Because what truly sustains a long-term relationship was never one successful deal. It's a client's continued belief, even in the hardest moments, that whatever happens, SJW will be standing on their side.

Real trust is never built when everything is going well. It grows slowly, through facing difficulties and solving problems together, time and time again.