The Property Ombudsman is to change its subscription charges, but has denied rumours that all sales agents who are registered with the scheme will also have to sign up their lettings operations.
The TPO is raising its ‘single’ charges, ie for agents who just want their sales operations in the scheme, but is reducing its ‘dual’ charges, ie for agents who want both sales and lettings operations included.
A spokesman said it was a case of “rationalising” subscriptions.
He said: “We are not saying that everyone has to join for sales and lettings. It’s up to members whether or not they want to sign up to both Codes of Practice.
“The idea behind rationalisation is that it makes life easier for everyone involved and ultimately reduces costs through simplification of the membership administration process.
“As it is, we have not raised fees for six years.
“I repeat, there is no obligation to join for lettings redress, although many agents seem to want to.”
It is currently mandatory for sales agents to belong to a redress scheme, but not for lettings agents, unless they belong to the RICS, ARLA, NAEA and NALS.
The spokesman also refuted one agent’s claim that belonging to the TPO encourages consumers to complain.
He said: “We only see complaints after members have tried to deal with them, so membership is not some form of self-harming. Interestingly, two-thirds of lettings disputes are initiated by landlords and many disputes actually turn out to be between landlords and tenants rather than involving the agent.”
In a letter from Bill McClintock, chairman of the company that runs the Ombudsman scheme, agents have been told: “Over many years TPO has been charging member firms for each office and each discipline carried on there, with the result that members carrying on both residential sales and lettings end up paying a substantially higher fee.
“We have reviewed our processes and looked at the service we provide from the point of view of both the agent and the consumer. It is important that consumers are not confused as to what is covered by our scheme and for these reasons the board has decided to move to a single fee for the activities within the office for all the disciplines that we cover. The only exception is property management of blocks and multiple properties where the size of operations varies from company to company.
“In order to achieve a single fee per office, the board decided that this should be staggered over three years in total depending on when individual subscriptions fall due.
“We have therefore raised the single discipline, eg sales or lettings, with effect from April, to £140 plus VAT, but have reduced the dual cost from £200 to £195 plus VAT.
“From 2012 the anticipated fee per office is £170 plus VAT at current prices to cover all disciplines, effectively giving a reduction for offices that carry on both residential sales and lettings, which is increasingly becoming the case.
“… I therefore commend this change to the fee structure to you and would like to thank you for your support over the years.”
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Comments
Why no mention of Ombudsman Services: Property? McClintock does not run 'The' Ombudsman scheme - he runs one of them.
A very interesting statement by TPO, as on Friday when I spoke with them I was told that sales and lettings would have to be covered under the membership; There would be no ability to have lettings as a separate and non covered business with in the office. Either confusion reigns at TPO, or there has been a quick back down!