Associations & Bodies
News and updates from associations and member organisations in the UK residential property industry.
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Landlords increasing rents to pay for extra regulatory costs
Read how ARLA says more landlords are increasing their rents to pay for deluge of new legislation being introduced to regulate and tax the sector.
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CIELA ceases to exist
New trade body failed to gain enough support from independent agents or serious momentum, forcing it to close on 31st March 2018.
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ASA rejects complaint against allAgents
Review site is successful in proving its ‘independent’ status, as used in its advertising and marketing, in a case involving negative Purplebricks reviews.
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Ombudsman Services withdraws from property market to develop “new model” for housing
The provision of redress schemes within the industry looks to be in trouble after one of the three government-approved ombudsman services announced today that it would be pulling out of the property sector. This means that the estate, letting and managing agents currently signed up to Ombudsman Services now have until August 6th to find a new provider. Ombudsman Services, which is based in Warrington and offers complaint handling services across several other sectors including removals, media, communications, energy and copyright, says it no longer wants to offer a “broken solution to a broken market”. But the organisation, rather than exiting the sector entirely, says it is to develop a “new model” for redress in housing. The move appears to be a pre-emptive strike to distance itself from the existing complaints handling structure that operates within the property sector, and to position itself as the next ‘housing ombudsman’ that the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is preparing to establish this Spring. Ombudsman Services says the property industry should copy the finance and energy sectors and feature a single regulator backed by one ombudsman. It is now to quiz consumers on what they want from an ombudsman service…
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RICS to expel members who behaved badly at Presidents Club dinner
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) was hoping to spend this year celebrating its 150th anniversary, but instead it is now busy dealing with the consequences of last month’s The Presidents Club charity black tie do in central London. RICS now says it may expel any member proved to have broken its ethical code of conduct while attending the event, where it is alleged hostesses were propositioned for sex and groped. It is over two weeks since the scandal broke after a Financial Times reporter gained access to the event while posing as an agency hostess, but RICS now says it has been moved to comment about the “inappropriate behaviour towards female hostesses” working at the black-tie do at The Dorchester hotel. This follows the publication of the guest list by The Guardian last week, which revealed that the property industry was heavily represented at The Presidents Club event. In response to this, the venerable institutions says: “RICS does not regulate the entire real estate sector. “As a professional body, RICS has a code of ethical conduct for members of its profession. It applies to all members of the profession, at all times – there is no moment or…
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Tenant Fees Bill is last thing sector needs, Residential Landlords Association tells MPs
A group of MPs leading an investigation into the private rented sector and the draft Tenant Fees Bill got more than they bargained for yesterday afternoon when David Smith (pictured, right), Policy Director at the Residential Landlords Association (RLA) came in to give evidence. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee had convened to hear from the RLA but also the National Landlords Association, a build-to-rent company called PlaceFirst, campaigning group Generation Rent and Citizen’s Advice about how best to police the private rental sector. It’s other task was to find out what the wider world thinks of the proposed lettings fees ban Blunt language David Smith, during a sometimes tour-de-force performance, told the MPs – who included former housing minister Mark Prisk – his views in sometimes blunt language during a two-hour session. His main points, some of which were echoed by the other people giving evidence, were: Fees charged by agents are charged at different levels and employed in varying ways all around the UK, so a blanket ban will be a blunt tool. It’s not true to say fees have been banned in Scotland – they’re now just post-loaded into tenancies, rather than being…
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Finally! CIELA to launch in April and tackle rogue agents head on
The Charter for Independent Estate and Letting Agents or CIELA has revealed that it will launch on 2nd April 2018 despite several false starts. Soft launched in March to gauge levels of support among independent agents, it then announced in June that it had too few members to go to a full launch, then revealed that it would kick off a full membership plan in July before announcing in October that it would cancel everything. CIELA now says it believes there is a place for an organisation because, its recent research among the industry and members shows, many agents view rogue operators as the biggest threat to the industry, not online agents, the tenant fees ban or corporates. In a statement released this morning, CIELA says it believes looming government regulation of the industry via organisation such as the NAEA and ARLA will not be effective. Rogue directory Instead, it is to launch a directory of legally-compliant agents that can be searched by anyone and be used by any agent regardless of size to prove their integrity and download a certificate. A system to enable rogue agents to be reported for non-compliance with industry regulations and relevant UK laws will…
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National Landlords Association hires former publishing boss to lead expansion
The National Landlords Association (NLA) says it has added 42,000 landlords to the total number it helps, an increase from 39,000 to 81,000, over the past five years. Its announcement comes as a new Chairman is revealed – former Archant magazine CEO Adrian Jeakings (pictured, right) who replaces outgoing role holder Carolyn Uphill (pictured, below). The organisation says Carolyn has overseen a significant expansion of the NLA, including the addition of 16,000 paying members to its landlord client list. “The private rented sector has witnessed a lot of change over the last five years,” she says. “Chairing the organisation and watching it grow and develop in such turbulent circumstances has had its challenges, but has been a privilege and an honour.” Adrian joined the NLA’s board of directors in June last year as a non-exec and, as well as his publishing experience, has also worked at the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) and as President of the Newspaper Society and Chairman of the News Media Association. “Carolyn has been a fantastic Chairman, and the growth of the NLA during her tenure has been great to see,” he says. “I’d like to thank her for the all her hard work, and…
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The Charter for Independent Estate and Lettings Agents cancels launch
The dream of a separate membership organisation for non-corporate estate agents is over after The Charter for Independent Estate and Lettings Agents (CIELA) last night announced that too few had signed up to join for a full launch. This follows an announcement in early August that just 5% of agents who had showed an interest in joining the organisation had committed to pay its pre-launch monthly membership fee of £35. CIELA’s flame has burned bright since it kicked off in January this year with a dozen founding members led by property software businessman Charlie Wright. As well as promising to fight the influence of the big corporate agents, unfair practices within the industry and the threat of online agents, CIELA also took on Purplebricks head-on, asking it to withdraw its ‘comparative-fee’ TV advertising and submitting a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority *(ASA) about it. A decision by the ASA about the complaint is due “within weeks”, it says. But despite the founding members (pictured, left) launching a six-month consultation pre-launch period in April that finished on Saturday, CIELA says “insufficient members has been achieved for a full launch”, blaming the current tough trading conditions which it says agents have…
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‘Make carbon monoxide alarms compulsory in all rental homes’
ARLA Propertymark has called for carbon monoxide alarms to be made compulsory in rented properties regardless of what heating system a property is fitted with. “At the moment, they only need to be in rooms [where there is] solid fuel burning, but we should be doing all we can to protect tenants,” says David Cox, its Chief Executive (pictured above, with Abrar Hyussain-Aziz from the Gas Safety Register). The comments come during Gas Safety Week, which runs from 18th to 24th September and is organised by Gas Safety Register, the registration body for the UK’s 120,000 gas safety engineers that replaced CORGI in 2009. This year’s event was launched last week in parliament with the support of Barry Sheerman, MP for Huddersfield (pictured, left) who highlighted how three of constituents recently died from carbon monoxide poisoning. This included a ten-year-old boy who was found dead in his bed after being poisoned by carbon monoxide leaking from a faulty boiler in the house next door. Chef Gordon Ramsay was caught up in a carbon monoxide scare recently when two members of his staff at the London House brasserie in central London were assessed for carbon monoxide poisoning, and adjoining flats evacuated.…
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