Steve Lamb, Spicerhaart's chief information officer, told The Negotiator that the agency rejected products already on the market because it did not want to "shoehorn our operation into a system designed around somebody else's processes." The statement frames the build-versus-buy decision as a question of operational fit rather than feature gaps. Tom Ainsworth, chief revenue officer at Rex Software, described the outcome as a "best-in-class property management system" built around "the realities of how their teams actually operate."
The collaboration took two years and involved what both parties describe as co-development, implying shared intellectual property and deep integration between Spicerhaart's compliance requirements and Rex's underlying platform. Rex AI has recently launched and is expected to be integrated into the system, though no current deployment timelines or measurable efficiency targets have been disclosed.
The platform is designed to address what Lamb calls "increasingly detailed compliance requirements facing landlords and agents," with explicit reference to the Renters' Rights Act. That bill has not yet passed into law as of 26 September 2026 but is widely expected to impose new obligations on letting agents and landlords, including extended notice periods, mandatory landlord databases and tighter enforcement of property standards.
The vendor calculus
For Rex, the Spicerhaart partnership delivers UK market credibility and a reference client managing a substantial portfolio. The Australian provider gains a showcase for its Property Management product and a foothold in a market where regulatory divergence makes local customisation valuable. For Spicerhaart, the trade-off is a five-year vendor relationship with embedded switching costs and the risk that bespoke development limits the agency's ability to adopt new features released to Rex's wider client base.
No ongoing licence fees, support costs or total cost of ownership beyond the £1.7 million development figure have been disclosed. The absence of detail makes it difficult to assess whether the investment is proportionate to the portfolio size. "Hundreds of thousands of tenancies" is vague. If Spicerhaart manages 200,000 tenancies, the cost per unit over five years is roughly £8.50. If the figure is closer to 100,000, the cost doubles. Neither Spicerhaart nor Rex disclosed the exact portfolio size.
The decision also raises questions about exclusivity and competitive advantage. If Rex now offers a co-branded or heavily customised version of its platform to other UK agencies, Spicerhaart's investment buys temporary differentiation at best. If the customisation remains exclusive, the agency has effectively paid to develop a moat around its operations, but one that depends entirely on Rex's continued support and product roadmap.
What smaller agencies should watch
The Renters' Rights Bill's passage and implementation timeline will test whether Spicerhaart's platform delivers the promised compliance advantage. If the legislation imposes obligations that off-the-shelf systems cannot easily accommodate—such as automated notice period calculations tied to tenancy length or integrated reporting to a national landlord database—the competitive gap widens. If standard platforms adapt quickly, Spicerhaart's investment looks defensive rather than strategic.
Proptech vendors will respond in one of two ways: increase configurability to retain mid-market clients who cannot afford bespoke builds, or double down on volume by targeting smaller agencies with lighter, cheaper tools that sacrifice workflow fit for speed of deployment. Watch for disclosure of measurable efficiency gains from Spicerhaart, adoption rates for any landlord or tenant portal built on the platform, and whether Rex wins further UK co-development contracts on the strength of this reference case. The commercial read depends on whether compliance complexity is a one-time shock or a permanent condition.
Source notes
This article was written from the trade reporting below. The analysis and the PBI Take are ours; we have not independently verified the underlying facts.
