After watching Watchdog, featuring Nigel Havers, on Wednesday evening a friend of mine, let us call him Mr Red, wanted to know why this would not happen with me…. A clip of the lettings segment from the program is here.
There were three main points involved in the programme:
- A Letting Agent shutting up shop and running off with a month’s rent that belonged to Nigel Havers
- Block management company increasing charges disproportionately
- Letting agents tying tenants into expensive energy contracts
Let’s look at these issues….
A Letting Agent shutting up shop and running off with a month’s rent belonging to Nigel Havers
Sadly Mr Havers money appears to have been stolen.
Delighted as I would be to have Mr Havers as a customer, to prevent this happening he could have used an agent who belonged to an official lettings body. ARLA, Propertymark or RICS for example. All three insist on and check accounts to ensure that their members use client accounts so any money paid into that account has to be properly accounted for. Sadly not enough people know this.
I am a member of Propertymark, I also belong to SAFE Agent an organisation that campaigns for greater knowledge amongst the public of the letting industry and against rogue traders like Medlock Apartments.
These organisations (ARLA, Propertymark and RICS) insist members are insured and will pay out should I cease trading and abscond with funds so landlords and tenants will not lose out on money paid to me. They will of course pursue me of the money but I would deserve it…
The program suggested that enforced membership of The Property Ombudsman would stop the likes of Medlock Apartments. Given in the program Medlock ignored court action they are unlikely to take notice of the Property Ombudsman. This is why I would support client money protection being mandatory amongst all letting agents.
Block management company increasing charges disproportionately
At this stage I am not involved in block management. Some are, but many letting agents are not. This is really a separate area of business, a different discipline and I am not sure why Watchdog lumped it in with two items which do fall firmly at letting agents feet.
Letting agents tying tenants into expensive energy contracts
When I move a tenant into a house, I transfer the supply from previous occupants (be that the previous tenant or the landlord) to the new tenant, this is a manual exercise. Companies like Spark (mentioned in the article) will transfer all the supplies over and deal with an admin function Letting Agents find time consuming. Not only will they do that they will also pay the agent for the privilege! You can see why this is tempting for agents.
I have avoided going down this route for exactly the reasons highlighted on the program. Letting Agents owe tenants a duty of care and I don’t want tenants to be overcharged for utilities. Tenants are free to move supply and our contacts do not stipulate that they have to stay with existing suppliers.
Jeremy Wasden, Belvoir Lettings Uxbridge
