Ombudsman's workload drops

Property Ombudsman Christopher Hamer has reported a 38% drop in disputes involving sales agents in the first quarter of this year, compared with the last quarter of last year.

He says the fall mirrors the drop in residential sales, although last year, sales disputes dropped only 3%, despite a 60% decline in transactions.

But disputes involving lettings agents have shown a slight rise of 3% in the first quarter of this year compared with the last quarter of 2008.

Lettings disputes rose 200% in 2008, but that was largely a result of large numbers of letting agents joining the scheme.

As in 2008, most lettings disputes arose over standards of tenant referencing carried out by agents, whether or not inspection visits had taken place and, to a lesser extent, administration of the deposit.

During the first quarter of 2009, the scheme – which has just changed its name from the Ombudsman for Estate Agents to the Property Ombudsman Service – received 3,157 inquiries from the public regarding sales and letting agents, up from 3,011 in the last three months of 2008.

Most of the initial inquiries did not translate into formal cases for further examination, but 102 new cases were opened regarding sales (162 in October to December 2008) and 90 involving lettings (87 in October to December 2008).

Lettings agents are not required to join a redress scheme, unlike sales agents, but the numbers joining continue to rise, making them subject to the Property Ombudsman’s Lettings Code of Practice. The OFT is being asked to recognise The Property Ombudsman lettings Code of Practice under its Consumer Codes Approval Scheme.

By the end of March 2009, 5,639 lettings offices in the UK had voluntarily joined the Ombudsman scheme compared with 5,100 at the start of the year, a rise of 10.5%.

Under ARLA’s new licensed agent scheme, members have to belong to an independent redress scheme. Effectively, the Property Ombudsman scheme is currently the only one open to the overwhelming majority.