Time to Trade370 Days Inside
Out now · £12.99
On the morning of 23 December 2022, Richard Nicholls was running one of the busiest HMO agencies in the country. By teatime he was in the back of a prison van, sentenced to three years for fraud.
This is the diary he kept for the 370 days that followed, written by hand in three prisons: HMP Thameside in London, HMP Fosse Way in Leicester and HMP Sudbury in Derbyshire. It's about losing a business from a cell, fighting for your son down a prison phone, sorting bins on a work party, teaching a property course written on lined A4, and trying to stay a dad to four children through letters and visits.
It doesn't ask for sympathy. It's honest about what he did, what prison is really like, and what it takes to come out the other side.
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Three prisons, 370 days
HMP Thameside, London
Category B · 23 December 2022 to July 2023
Where I lost everything. Twenty-three hours a day behind the door on induction, the first nights, and learning how prison really works.
HMP Fosse Way, Leicester
Category C · July to October 2023
The library and the writing. Where I started to work out who I wanted to be when I got out.
HMP Sudbury, Derbyshire
Open prison · October to 27 December 2023
Open conditions, work, and the long countdown to the gate.
What I did inside
- Worked on the waste team, sorting the prison's bins.
- Worked in the library and spent hours in the art room.
- Wrote a property course by hand, HMPs 2 HMOs, and taught it to other prisoners.
- Gained bookkeeping and teaching qualifications.
- Wrote to my children every week.
- Lined up work with Timpson for the day I was released.
- Kept a diary every single day. That diary became this book.
From the book
A business on The Square with a pipeline of sales and a team who'd just had their best year. A diary full of valuations for January. A phone that never stopped. A name in the HMO world that people actually knew. And a court date in London the next morning.
When the door opened for yard I walked out holding my four photos, because I wasn't leaving them in there with him.
I'd been writing to my kids every week, and I'd caught myself falling into a trap: my letters were about me. My sentence, my sadness, my feelings. Heavy letters, for little girls.
I'd assumed that we'd all be using this time of incarceration to find ourselves, look for personal accountability and take on ownership over the crimes that got us all here. Just me then?
It's like I'm not a human, like my family don't matter, like any good I've done doesn't matter because in 2016–17 I made mistakes.
The bad parts of the journey are still part of the journey. I copied that out and stuck it above my bed.
Why I wrote it
I started the diary to stay sane. I kept it because I realised almost nobody outside knows what prison is actually like day to day, and almost nobody inside gets to tell them.
I've published it because I'd rather people hear the whole story from me, the bad parts included.
Three books
Time to Trade: 370 Days Inside
The prison year, December 2022 to December 2023. The diary I kept in three prisons.
Out now · Buy it here
The Honest HMO
What every house can sustain, and what that means for you in 2027. How to read any HMO the way a valuer does.
Launching November 2026
From HMP back to HMOs
Two rebuilds: from 2017 to 2022, and from release back into the HMO world and HMO X.
Coming next
Book 2 · Launching November 2026
The Honest HMOWhat every house can sustain, and what that means for you in 2027
Every HMO has a level it can sustain. Knowing yours changes every decision you make.
Launch rents fade. Houses drift. Buyers and lenders price what a house can hold, not what it once achieved. In The Honest HMO, I show landlords, investors and developers how to read any HMO the way a valuer does, starting in the hallway, before the spreadsheet.
It's built on the Tier Methodology and twenty-odd years of hallways, with a "Do this Monday" checklist at the end of every chapter.
Inside The Honest HMO
Read the market
The 2027 HMO market, what your town can sustain, and the five tiers.
Build it right
Tenants, not Instagram. The leverage trap. Sourcers, packagers and power teams.
Run it well
The number that travels, why every HMO slips, pricing every project in rent and value, and why compliance is a valuation issue.
Buy with your eyes open
Where to buy in 2027, and how to read someone else's HMO.
Sell at the price the market meets
Why the route follows the valuation, and five ways out.
What comes next
2027 to 2030: what I'd do now, and knowing what you're good at.
"Always think 'tenant first' with every HMO decision."