Letting agents who did not register with one of three government-approved redress schemes – designed to give people in rented homes a recognised place to take their complaints– by the start of October 2014 face fines of £5000.
But statistics from Citizen’s Advice this week show that one in five letting agents are still not members of any redress scheme, despite membership being mandatory for six months. The figures come after research from North East-based sales and lettings firm KIS showed that 99.5% of tenants are not aware the scheme exists.
The redress schemes - run by the Property Ombudsman, Ombudsman Services Property and the Property Redress Scheme – assess renter complaints and can award compensation where appropriate.
Ajay Jagota, founder and Chief Executive Officer of North East based sales and lettings business KIS, had this to say: “When the redress scheme launched, my biggest fear was that the scheme was about as well known as the winner of The Voice. My fear now is that no-one is even bothering to make sure companies have even signed up. It’s not hard to find agents who don’t seem to be members. We found two apparently unregistered companies with less than five minutes Googling, so the big question is, who is checking on these companies?
I’m not even aware of a single letting agent being prosecuted for not being a member of an apparently compulsory scheme, and have written to the Ministry of Justice to ask if any have. I have always said that the best redress is the law, and everything that needs to be illegal is illegal. The problem is the relevant authorities seem to lack the resources to effectively enforce the law.
It just feels like the entire redress scheme is about acting rather than taking action, regulation for regulations sake – not renter’s sake.”
