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Ombudsman calls for all letting agents to join a redress scheme

20 October 2010
Written by rosalind renshaw

Property Ombudsman Christopher Hamer is pressing the Government to make it mandatory for letting agents to belong to a redress scheme.

Although housing minister Grant Shapps has made it clear that any form of legislation to regulate the lettings sector is not on the agenda, Hamer has called on him to review this stance.

He said it is “imperative” that consumers in the private rented sector gain some protection, and that the Government could easily expand the scope of the Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Act 2007.

The call has come after the Ombudsman’s office received 70% more initial inquiries from people about letting agents than about estate agents.

Although these translated into the same number of cases – 150 – being opened for both the sales and lettings sector, Hamer said he was concerned because there are 46% more sales agents in the scheme than letting agents.

He said that all residential sales agents must join an approved redress scheme. “Encompassing a similar obligation for letting agents would be an obvious consistency,” he said.

By the end of September, there were 7,908 member firms of the Property Ombudsman scheme, operating between them 11,310 sales offices and 7,756 lettings offices.

Comments

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    If you get it right by not being a complete crook, which isn’t hard then you can do worse than join.

    Use it as a pillock filter, you know em, silly sods that you cant reason with – ive had a couple as clients over the years and after calmly and respectfully trying to help them with ridiculous complaints we referred them to this lot who investigated and found very much in our favour and that was the end of it. -

    Of course if you are a robbing fraudulent type then don’t join or make sure you cover your self well enough……either works in that instance

    Jonnie

    • 22 October 2010 17:18 PM
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    Anyone including private landlords (who are the worst for being crooks) should be compulsory member of a redress scheme BUT I strongly recommend that the one side biase towards false claims by tenants needs to be addressed. This attitude to no win - no cost society needs sorting out.

    • 21 October 2010 12:49 PM
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    In any supply and demand market there is always going to be someone who simply can not afford what someone else can.
    At times when demand is high the number of complaints is high.
    Mr Hamer probably ought to supply a bit more detail about the complaints before he tries to impose futher regulation.
    Removing the utopia of subsided housing in the spending review yesterday means that rental complaints are going to soar. The copmplaints and anger of having to stump up 80% of market value is bound to cause resentment. Guess who is in the front line of that anger and resentment...Us!
    Sorry sir/madam, the cheapest property available is 20% higher than you can afford and we have on average 30+ applicants chasing every property at the moment.
    We already have 29 dissapointed applicants with the potential to complain so free free to complain to the ombudsman, its a shame that a mountain of complaints and regulation won't actually increase the supply of property or bring rents to an affordable level.

    • 21 October 2010 09:47 AM
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    Again I ask where is the NFOPP in all these matters? They should be shouting loudly on behalf of their members who have to comply with the rules of membership

    • 20 October 2010 15:56 PM
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    Agree with Neil

    • 20 October 2010 13:24 PM
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    This is a bit like turkey's voting for Christmas. We are in TPO for sales, we will not voluntarily join as letting agents. Until tenants have to invest something into the process (such as penalties if their complaints are unfounded), they will complain just to make the agents life difficult. Of course Mr Hamer would like membership to be made compulsory as his is a profit making company and it relies on its membership fees!!
    Try phoning TPO and finding an option on their telephone tree for members who have had a complaint made against them. There is not one, but there are options for new members and tenants wishing to make a complaint, or to speak about a complaint they have made. Sums up TPO's attitude towards it fee paying members!

    • 20 October 2010 11:57 AM
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    Sorry I must be thick here and doubtless someone better at difficult sums can explain this to me, though to me it doesn't look like a difficult sum. If you have 70% more complaints about lettings than sales how can you open 150 files for each sector. Does it mean that a lot of the complaining Landlords and Tenants actually were making unfounded complaints? Now that would be news. Meanwhile Hamer is 100% correct and TPO membership should be compulsory for all agents of both ilks. Why should the good guys, or at least those attempting to be better by volunterring for some sort of voluntary regulation weak though in reality it may be, end up financially penalised. By joining ARLA and NALS etc agents must join TPO as a condition of those memberships. Why should other agents totally unregulatednot come under the same umbrella. It would be VERY interesting to know how many of the TPO members actually volunteered to join the scheme and pay yet another costs when they didn't have to, as opposed to the more captive and compelled members of ARLA and NALS.

    If you have

    • 20 October 2010 10:28 AM
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