Associations & Bodies
News and updates from associations and member organisations in the UK residential property industry.
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Housing crisis is deepening, says HomeOwners Alliance
The proportion of renters who aspire to be home owners has started to reduce after several years of rising aspirations, a survey conducted by the HomeOwners Alliance has revealed. An additional 250,000 renters in the UK gave up on the home-owning dream, its 2017 Homeowners Report suggests, pointing to a worsening housing crisis across the UK. Among the renters it canvassed 71% said they aspired to own their home one day, down from 73% last year but still more than in 2013 when the proportion was 65%. The HomeOwners Alliance, which publishes the report jointly with BLP Insurance, says the main barrier to ownership among 86% of renters is house prices, while 85% say saving for a deposit is also a serious concern and 80% say they can’t find a home to buy. The report highlights how average earnings in the UK have been increasing recently by 2.6% annually, house prices have increased by 4.5%. Housing crisis The HomeOwners Alliance says its report reveals a worsening housing crisis that is no longer restricted to just the more crowded areas of the UK such as London and the South East. For example, 68% of those canvassed in both Yorkshire and Humber and…
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Still “too many” cases of rogue letting agents says SAFEagent
Despite recent regulatory changes and industry initiatives there are still “too many” cases of criminal letting agents stealing landlord and tenant cash, says membership-based campaigning group SAFEagent. The comments come as the organisation kicks off SAFEagent Awareness Week from 15th to 19th May which is designed to highlight to consumers the “importance of choosing a professional agent who is part of a Client Money Protection (CMP) Scheme run by a regulatory organisation”. SAFEagent, which has 3,000 member agents across the UK and has been running for six years, recently won official backing for its ongoing client money protection campaign when in March this year the government said CMP would be made mandatory for all agents. Mandatory CMP “While SAFEagent is delighted that the campaign has finally achieved its goal of mandatory CMP, it is not yet law,” a statement from the organisation says. “This still leaves consumers at risk if their chosen agent does not have client money protection.” John Midgley, Chair of the SAFEagent Steering Group (pictured), says: “Choosing a letting agent without CMP in place therefore remains a massive risk for both landlords and tenants. We’ll continue to campaign, raising awareness among consumers of the importance of only using…
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Historic photo? CIELA members snapped at first meeting
Behold CIELA, or the Charter for Independent Estate and Letting Agents, in the flesh. This photograph was taken at their inaugural gathering in Bicester, Oxfordshire yesterday where they spent five hours discussing the challenges that smaller agents face. The CIELA members talked about the many several ways independent agents could take on the corporates including in one of the most pressing areas – communications. The group discussed how public relations could harness the collective power of independent agents and take on the “misleading marketing” put about the larger estate agency firms. Serious challenges Luke Gidney, owner of Let Leeds letting agency, said: “As an industry, we have never faced so many serious challenges at once. We urgently need a united voice now, without corporate influence.” Vivienne Harris, owner of Heathgate Properties in London, said: “Currently we are an industry that is under attack. We need an organisation that can lobby government and educate the public on what it is we actually do.” The discussions also swung round to the group’s dislike of online-only and “fake agent” agents, as well as how to use independent agents’ sales and lettings data to produce the UK’s most up-to-date and accurate house price and rental…
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CIELA members gather to plan data blitz that will rival corporates
The inaugural meeting of all the founder and regional members of the Charter for Independent Estate Agents (CIELA) is taking place in the Oxfordshire town of Bicester today. The organisation says the meeting will be a forum discuss how independent agents can unite their “potential firepower” and unite their resources and data to create a force greater than any “corporate in the industry”. Independent agents CIELA clearly thinks one failing of independent agents is that they do not share their data in the same way corporate branch networks do. David Butler (pictured, left), CEO of software firm ResiAnalytics and a former senior team member at both the Hometrack and CBRE, is to speak to them today to explain the power of the “combined data that independents currently hold between them, but do not currently use”, the organisation says. CIELA, which has been formed to represent the collective voice of independents and also communicate to the public what independents “actually do”. It has been busy in recent weeks. It’s website has been updated and it has hired a PR team that in the past has worked with Zoopla and Tepilo. CIELA, which was founded by tech firm owner Charlile Wright, is…
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Propertymark kicks off sporting spend at Sky-broadcast matches
Propertymark, the new property brand formerly known as NFoPP launched in February, is to promote its new identity on perimeter boards at 20 sporting events to be broadcast by Sky Sports this year. It is part of a significant push by the NAEA, ARLA and NAVA to present themselves as consumer – rather than just industry – champions to the public. The new campaign will include three cricket matches, six rugby matches and a single football fixture, Scunthorpe United versus Bradford City on the 24th March. The rest of the events include a Rugby Union Varsity match at Twickenham on December 7th as well as an under-20s England versus Scotland match and the Rugby League Super League Grand Final at Old Trafford on October 7th. Propertymark says the campaign, which will feature its new green logo, is to be seen by an audience of 9.5 million between the ages of 18 and 65 on Sky during the events. “This demonstrates our commitment to support Propertymark to benefit members by reaching a wide and relevant consumer audience via popular televised Sky Sports events,” says Propertymark. Long tradition Propertymark joins a long tradition of estate agents backing sport financially. In recent years…
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Landlord possession claims fall by 26 per cent in Wales
The number of claims made by private sector landlords to repossess a property has fallen by 26 per cent over the past two years.
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Has the London rental market topped out?
The pressures and costs of living in the capital are persuading many tenants to look elsewhere to live as demand within the London rental market ‘slides’, it has been claimed. According to the National Landlords Association (NLA) the number of landlords in central London reporting a rise in tenant demand has dropped from 45% to 17% compared to January last year. But figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders also suggest that the reduction in demand among tenants is down to increased number of first time buyers in the market, something that Prime Minister Theresa May put at the heart of her vision for Britain when she came to power last year. The CML’s latest figures show first time buyer mortgage borrowing increased by 9% in November, year-on-year. But London’s rental market problems, coupled to looming tax increases for landlords, are either driving many investors out of the market, or frightening them off new property purchases. The CML say that landlord borrowing has fallen by 10% year on year. The NLA says just 5% of London landlords say they plan to buy further properties this year, down from 15% last year, while outside London confidence is much higher. In the North…
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Nearly half of landlords may drop letting agents
Forty seven percent of the 1.1 million landlords who use letting agents say they would self-manage their properties if their profits begin to fall following the taxation changes due to kick in next year. From April next year tax relief available to landlords is being gradually reduced for higher and additional rate taxpayers and will only be available at the basic rate from 2020. This means for example that a 40% tax payer who currently pays £1,680 tax on a rental income of 15,000 will pay £6,000 in tax in four years’ time. “A significant number of landlords will be hit hard by the tax changes and agents’ fees will be one of the items underneath the magnifying glass if profits begin to decrease,” says Richard Price, Executive Director of the The UK Association of Letting Agents (UKALA), which carried out the research. It asked 900 investors about the tax changes during a survey in September to assess the impact the extra tax burden might have on letting agents’ businesses. The findings were highly variable depending on where the landlords were operating. For example, 56% of Scottish agents canvassed said they would ditch their agent if profits were squeezed, while…
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UKALA switches redress provider after review
Members of the UK Association of Letting Agents (UKALA) will soon have to update their window stickers, websites and stationary with a new redress scheme provider, it has been announced. Following a review UKALA says it is not renewing its contract with Ombudsman Services: Property (OS:P) which has been its provider since April 2014, and has instead signed up with the Property Redress Scheme (PRS). The new service will kick off from 1st January next year while new or renewing UKALA agents have had access to the new scheme since early October. Ongoing cases being handled by OS:P will continue “until the matter has been resolved,” it says. UKALA says it undertook a review of services and based on UKALA executive director Richard Price’s desire to “secure the best service and value for our members” the switch was made following a review. The association makes a big play of its property redress scheme provision, calling it a ‘key benefit’ of membership and giving both tenants and landlords the right to impartial independent redress if their agent fails to resolve a complaint. “We have written to all members to inform them of the change, and we’ve outlined the steps that members in…
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32% more complaints resolved by The Property Ombudsman in 2015
As several hundred agents gather for The Property Ombudsman’s second annual conference in Birmingham today, the TPO has revealed that the number of complaints it resolved during 2015 increased by 32% compared to the year before. TPO says this is mostly down to the high number of agents joining its scheme during 2015 after membership of one of the three schemes became mandatory following legislative changes in 2014. TPO is now the largest of the redress schemes with 35,374 member branches and, over the past five years, it has seen membership grow by 82%. Katrine says that during 2015 TPO received 16,265 enquiries from the public about sales and letting agents and resolved 3,304 complaints (up 32% on 2014) including 1,955 complaints about letting agents (up 33%) and 1,220 complaints about sales agents (up 27%). The largest number of complaints came from agents’ clients such as landlords and sellers and the most common complaints in lettings were about poor management, communication and record keeping, and end of tenancy issues. A majority of complaints about sales agents concerned communication and record keeping as well as marketing and advertising issues and terms of business disputes. “Overall, this is good news for consumers and…
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