Just 27% of complaints to the Property Ombudsman were about sales agents last year. The majority (53%) related to lettings.
According to a report in the Financial Times on Saturday, which appeared ahead of an embargo for other media which ends tomorrow morning, there were 8,334 complaints last year about letting agents, a 123% increase since 2008.
There were just 4,261 complaints about estate agents last year, compared with 6,067 five years ago.
Property Ombudsman Christopher Hamer told the FT he believes that around 60% of an estimated 15,000 letting agents have voluntarily signed up to the TPO.
Altogether last year, there was a 12% rise in the number of total complaints to the Property Ombudsman. There were 15,782 complaints, up from 14,066 in 2011.
Of this total number, 1,970 cases were referred for formal review or early resolution. The Ombudsman supported, either in whole or in part, 74% complaints against letting agents and 61% of complaints against sales agents.
The highest award last year was of £13,500 against a lettings agent. The case involved an agent which was ‘reckless’ in its referencing, leaving a landlord out of pocket after a tenant failed to pay rent.
It is unclear why information appears to have been released to the Financial Times for its story on Saturday, when other media including EAT and trade press received the TPO’s report only on Friday afternoon and were told to observe an embargo until Tuesday.
If TPO did break its own embargo, then the Financial Times could be seen as a curious choice, as the paper is not especially known for its interest in estate or letting agents.
EAT has not broken the embargo. We have used only the information contained in the FT story, and will be carrying a fuller report on our sister site Letting Agent Today tomorrow, plus a further report in Wednesday’s EAT.
Comments
Just had the Ombudsman e mail with membership invoice for next year prices they have shot up! there is an alternative we are looking at massive saving....... http://www.ombudsman-services.org/property.html
Nanny state, benefits, false PPI claims, complaints that don’t stack up, the world does not owe you anything, time we moved this back to being real England, stand up for your selves
who did they complain about?
The Property Ombudsman has failed to halt the number of complaints made against its letting agent members
The number of complaints rose 12% to just over 1 per year for each agency firm in the country. A figure which ignores
40% of firms dealt with complaints, in house, in the traditional way. Extrapolated out the figure of 15782 represents a truly shocking 1.75 annual complaints per agent.
Despite this TPO are lobbying hard for compulsory regulation of the Letting Industry, a move which will see their profits soar. Fixed costs will remain the same while revenues will close to double generating a 5 fold increase in profits. Nice work if you can get it!
Ros has editted the story so the complaints level has dropped down to 0.44%.
0.44% is so stupidly small it is hardly worth having a scheme in the first place let alone all the staff and administration that such a scheme requires. But then again TPO is designed as a commercial profit making organisation rather one designed to protect the public.
Who is on the payroll?
How about yet another call from the secret RICs cartel to introduce licencing of Letting agents? who benefits? yay TPO!
let us all be surprised when the global god of Hereditaments and the artifically peered labour crone come up with another development/ chapter aimed at churning a bit more cash out of Agents and tilting the playing field in favour of RICs agents who are unable of being commercially competitive on a level one.
17,675 complaints (adding 12% to 15782)out of 3.6 million tenancies is less than 0.49%. To put that in perspective 3.75% of tenants do not pay their rent! Agents have 7.65 times the right to complain about tenants not doing what they should as tenants whinging to a system designed to extort fees from agents.
TPO is a quango that ought to be abolished in favour of a restructured NFoPP doing what it is designed to do. (with a government inspector ensuring it does)
Why choose 2008 as the base?
An attempt at justifying their being?
This is a non-story that is of interest only to the TPO.
The rest of us are not surprised when one considers the change in the market and the fact that it has brought many inexperienced and untrained estate (sales) agents into the booming lettings market .
Good spot on the maths!!
The big award against an agent interests me - I thought the TPO was limited in what he could award, not sure the Landlord would have got that much if he'd gone through the Courts.
Depends on the facts and exact figures involved of course, and how long the problem went on.
Interesting though that far as I can recall I have never seen it mentioned in any one of the TPO's numerous magazine articles
Yawn,
If the Ombudsman's report is of no importance to you, it's best you turn over and go back to sleep again.
Point is this is a non story because it is obvious what is going to happen to complaints volumes in one part of a market which is at best stagnant and at worst in steady decline (sales) compared to another market where there is instaiable demand - lettings.
I'm surprised the gap isn't wider given the state of the sales market and how many applicants are fighting over each available let - and complaining when they don't win.
In trms of statistics I have asked before how and where does TPO get its estimate of 15,000 lettinmg agents from?
More to the point assuming they are correct 8334 complaints means one complaint a year for every other agent in the UK . Given how quick Landlords and Tenants are to moan and criticise I'd say that was a remarkably good performance!!
A feckin embargo? what on earth is that all about? Seems TPO are trying to max out a non story with a pointless embargo.
This is a exciting as Peter Bolton King's mid month Press releases all entitled "Property prices go......" Up, down nowhere depending on the month. Hey Peter how about a variation, Property prices go to the shops? Property prices go to a lap dancing club?
Come on Ros there must be more newsworthy stories. How did Ocky do in this years' Oscars?