ARLA has hit back at claims that it isn’t standing up for the industry after it emerged it didn’t attend the Fair Fees Forum’s working group.
Readers reacted with dismay yesterday after EYE reported that ARLA was not at the meeting last Friday.
But responding to the criticism, David Cox, managing director of ARLA, revealed that ARLA was never actually invited.
He told EYE: “ARLA was not invited to last Friday’s meeting of the Fair Fees Forum.
“However, on Thursday [tomorrow] we will be attending a meeting of DCLG’s Affordability and Security Working Group, which has been looking at the issue of tenant fees for several months, where we hope to get a better understanding of the Government’s thoughts after last Wednesday’s announcement.
“But rather than taking any knee-jerk reaction, we are carefully considering our strategy on the letting fees ban in order to ensure our campaigning in the months to come guarantees that the views of letting agents are heard loud and clear at the very highest levels of government.”
Despite Cox’s statement, it was actually the Fair Fees working group which met last Friday, not the Fair Fees Forum itself.
EYE sought clarification from NALS, and while it declined to issue a statement, we have cleared some smoke over the events and reasons that both ARLA and The Property Ombudsman weren’t at last Friday’s working group meeting.
Both were invited to the earlier, and first, meeting of the NALS Fair Fees Forum, but for apparently different reasons were unable to attend.
The Forum then decided the make-up of the working group, but because ARLA was not at the Forum, it wasn’t included in the working group. Neither was TPO, also not at the Forum.
The working group meeting went ahead last Friday at which it decided to re-extend the invitation to ARLA and also TPO. Similar invitations were also re-extended to RICS and NLA.
The decision to re-extend invitations to both David Cox of ARLA and Katrine Sporle of TPO was put in writing by email on November 28.
* Separately, a petition has been launched on the Parliament website demanding that the ban on letting agency fees should be dropped, and a cap set instead. It says a ban would make it difficult for agents to survive, and they would have to pass costs on to landlords, who would then increase rents.
The petition, placed by Imran Alam, of Essex agents Everest, can be found here: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173668
Comments (12)
Firstly I would like to clarify that English is not my first language, but…to answer the petition in broken English created by Imran Alam and to clarify some of the costs not “fees” that have been confused in the chaos:
Referencing: part of the agent’s duty to provide a good service to the client, the landlord; an agency’s cost NOT the tenant.
Staff for viewing: it is a job, an employee of the agency and paid by the agency NOT the tenant.
Company car: a company choice, a marketing tool, a benefit in Kind, a salary sacrifice… paid by the agency NOT the tenant.
Membership of Professional bodies: a company choice or a must to adhere to have a better impact in the market. A agency’s cost NOT the tenant.
Subscription to portals: you can’t be a letting agent without. An agency’s cost, definately NOT the tenant.
If Scotland has managed, I am pretty sure England would do too. Just few little adjustments, it will be hard at the beginning, with small changes to business lifestyle and elimination of rogues and crooks….it will be a better place.
Let’s be honest here, the whole kit and caboodle is knackered.There are laws against everything and everyone but nothing is enforced.The industry’ is fully aware of the day to day running of Estate Agency in this country but coludes to say problem what problem ?
Perhaps David Cox should be asking himself just WHY his organisation wasn’t invited to the meeting. I find it astonishing that a trade body claiming to represent our industry is not invited to attend a discussion on what is the biggest threat to members for decades.
Knee jerk reaction or not they had to get involved in something like this at such a critical time. If there is ever a time for knee jerk its now, they should already know their arguments anyway its not like they need to plan their response they should know it already.
I have long felt that while ARLA do say they work hard for all their members it is rarely seen or heard about in the press.They are often very late or absent from making comments at crucial times whereas NLA, Shelter or GenRent are the opposite.
Either they are simply not doing enough to voice the concerns of their fee paying members (not to mention the cost of the annual financial report) or their marketing/press relations strategy is and has been seriously lame for a long time.
Most Landlords are not aware of ARLA unless you tell them. How about a few targeted FB ads per year per area as part of the membership fee? I’d pay a bit more for that. Just do something!
Really starting to wonder if it is worth it.
PIE, the efforts of Imran Alam in producing a petition of parliament is very commendable. However, I am not being pedantic or unkind but the grammar is not very good at all. I would like to send the link to all of our landlords to sign but am concerned that the wording of the petition is not suitable. If I start a petition, would you be willing to share the link on this site?
Agreed. I also feel the heading is incorrect as no such ban exists. As such, although I agree with the message, I will not be signing this petition.
Can PIE publish a story about this link? https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions
In the time between now and when the ban is likely to come into force wouldn’t it be better to agree on, build and trial a practical solution that suits all stakeholders rather than individual factions? Democracy is about providing solutions that the majority agree is fair not the solution the most active lobbyist shouts loudest about.
The need for fairer system for tenants has been evident for far longer than even Shelter have been campaigning. With agreement from key and influential firms along with support from the agents most likely to be affected it is possible that within a very short time to demonstrate/ trial a system that satisfies the needs of everyone apart from the rogues, crooks and greedy.
So what activity has ARLA been engaged in to support the industry over this issue???
several it’s just not been publicised
Step down Cox, your time is up.