The industry should work together to flag up suspicions of any letting agent that is about to go bust or disappear with clients’ money.
The call has come from John Midgley, chairman of SAFEagent, and who heads up property company Touchstone.
He said: “We need an early warning system.
“It is all very well requiring letting agents to have to belong to an approved redress system, but the words ‘stable doors’ and ‘horses bolting’ spring to mind. It is too late if the damage has already been done.
“I would like to see all the stakeholders – tenancy deposit schemes, the membership bodies and insurance companies – coming together on a regular basis to share their concerns.”
Midgley was speaking after last week’s SAFEagent week initiative.
He said: “It went very well, with the emphasis on raising awareness in the regional and local media. A lot of agents took part, and we provided them with a social media pack.”
He said of the SAFEagent scheme that it is “run by agents, for agents, in the interests of consumer protection”.
It currently has just under 3,000 member agent offices, said Midgley, who hopes the number will rise by another 1,000 over the next year.
He said: “We are showing very steady growth. It costs agents £50 to join, which is pretty much what it costs us to send out the marketing material.
“Clearly, we could charge more than £50 and use the budget to grow SAFEagent more quickly. That is something we have considered, but at the moment we are opting for a ‘steady as she goes’ approach.
“The key to it is that, unfortunately, consumer awareness is still missing. Our message, about Client Money Protection, is not an easy one to get across.
“What we would like to say to tenants is that, even if the agent has exactly the property they want, if that agent does not have CMP, then walk away.”
Midgley also told Eye that he plans to “revisit” ARLA – which has never publicly given its unqualified endorsement of the SAFEagent scheme.
He said that after managing director Ian Potter retires in June, he will raise the issue with his successor.
“It is not as though we are in competition with ARLA – indeed, far from it. We are in fact helping to signpost their members,” said Midgley.
“In the interests of the consumer, we should be working closely together.”
Comments (8)
Apart from your last para I agree with your comments posted at 8.11 today but we cant just "roll over" and pretend that nothing is happening which is what you seem to be suggesting. I pay a fortune out for various memberships but currently I am seeing no "joined up" effort by the industry to clean it up and as a result I fear we are sleepwalking into the hands of those that wish to punish all letting agents with stupid badly thought out ideas like banning all tenant fees. …… I support the comment by John Midgley that “In the interests of the consumer, we should be working closely together" …….chrisp
Chris far from pretending nothing is happening I am saying loud and clear that RICS effectively condoning roguing by allowing members to use client funds as a business loan account. ARLA by allowing members to spreadsheet bank reconciliations to pass audit is an indication that the problems are industry wide rather than restricted to a few crooks and criminals.
Here is a challenge… for each of the trade associations name who is in charge of compliance with their respective client cash account codes of conduct. Whose job is on the line if an RICS member borrows getting on for £400,000 of client's money to bail out a failing part of their business. Who at ARLA is for the chop when a firm with close to 1000 clients is a completely unknown figure adrift with its bank balances?
The industry has not recovered from the political ambitions of two blokes, only when there is a single trade body for Lettings and Management where the barrier to trade is a bit higher than the ability to wander into Prontoprint for some business cards will any meaningful headway be made.
CMP ought to be the route to control the industry but CMP should only be supplied by the regulator responsible for the month by month governance of its members, same with redress. Anything less is a confusing looky likey ticket to trade. The SAFE group ought to be putting pressure on the trade associations of its members to raise their collective games before it starts on those who are no more guilty than, by association, themselves.
In 2011 TPO charged us £168.00 for the "privilege" of being a member as required by NALS who require us to have CMP; PII and be members of SAFEagent.
Just three years later that has risen by £66 to £234.00 but do we get an extra £66 worth of benefit?
All our deposits are lodged with DPS but that gives such a small discount on CMP it is barely worth it. Perhaps ALL deposits should be custodial rather than insured?
Wynmorgan 'why, if you are a member of a professional body such as ARLA, GLM or the like, you need to be a member of SAFE Agent'.
The simple answer is that both ARLA and the NAEA decided that their role was to jump on the gravy train and push Government to force all agents to belong to a professional body – theirs – and to make as much money as could possibly be squeezed from agents with continuous (very often wishy washy lacking in substance) training sessions, expensive CMP, high membership fees etc. As an agent for the last 32 years and a past NAEA member (for this very reason), I feel that first and foremost all agents must trade honestly, how else can a business grow. They must belong to a redress scheme. All agents must have Client Money Protection. All dilapidation deposits should be placed with the DPS and not insurance backed schemes. Agents have taken the brunt of politicians' meddling and for the most part they seem to have got it wrong. There is now so much confusing red tape that the real problems we all have with dodgy agents has not been dealt with and they set up and cause mayhem unabated.
Ampersat – you are correct, however that remains a matter for Government and the organisations which should be policing the existing regulations and punishing offenders.
SAFE is a campaign, nothing more. Agents who display the SAFE logo show that they have CMP & PI Insurance, voluntarily subscribed to a code of practice & redress. It is also a way for agents to show that they take consumer protection seriously and many SAFE members lobby to achieve this as well as doing their bit to raise awareness.
It really isn't about buying stickers as demonstrated by the SAFE awareness week. It's about standing up and being counted rather than sitting in an office complaining to yourself that the system is wrong.
There is mass of information out there and if, as John suggests, we all work together, maybe we can start to prevent problems rather than try and fix them when it's too late.
I am extremely proud of the work SAFEagent steering group has done to date and the immense support from agents across the UK has been immense. This highlights the fact that the so called 'rogues' are in the minority and most agents want improved regulation & policing – as does ARLA, NALS, RICS, UKALA which of course means we are all actually on the SAME side.
GLM? what is that then?
I have never understood why, if you are a member of a professional body such as ARLA, GLM or the like, you need to be a member of SAFE Agent.
With every respect and admiration for every one and everything SAFE stands for I would like to point out a few things for consideration.
While it is possible for any Joe blow to spend under £1000 to buy a cloak of respectability kit; CMP, a Safe Sticker, a NALs sticker ,a redress sticker and if they want to push the boat out a UKALA sticker there is simply no meaningful barrier preventing anyone setting up as Charlatan, Cadd and Co and offering all the same services as every other Agent.
With clear and documented cases of dodgy practice extending across the spectrum of agencies from un-qualified and inexperienced start ups through to generation established RICS firms how can there be any sort of obvious and meaningful indication of who to avoid?
With the pressure of excessive demand coupled with realistically no obvious way of picking out a good un from a bad un it is both futile and impossible to educate the public, both Landlords and Tenants ,that they need to steer clear of those agents who simply should not be allowed to trade.