Let’s eject rogue letting agents

The lettings industry has taken something of a bashing lately and I, for one, am very weary of us all being grouped together and tarred with the same brush by commentators and politicians alike.

There are some 15,000 lettings agents in the UK and it’s a relatively small number of rogue letting agents that continue to give the industry a bad name. While there has been much, to my mind rather misguided, political rhetoric about our industry lately, borne out of a misunderstanding of how the industry works, I don’t believe we should be afraid of regulation. On the contrary, I would welcome a move to regulate the lettings industry and the banning of rogue agents who all too often give us all a bad name.

However, for regulation to work it would require proper policing and the prosecution of malpractice. Unfortunately, this would be costly to administrate and is therefore probably a long way off.

What can we do?

The single best thing we can do is to promote our professionalism. It’s time for the professional majority of agents to start banging their own drums a lot louder. We need to do some serious self promotion to distance ourselves from the few rogue agents in the business.

My understanding is that over 50 per cent of lettings agents are members of a regulatory body – typically ARLA, RICS or NALS, with over 7,200 in ARLA membership alone and we should be doing everything we possibly can to promote this fact. No travel agent, airline or tour operator with ABTA or ATOL membership would dream of not using those logos on every piece of advertising or marketing because it gives clients reassurance.

As an industry we should be doing the same. At Savills, we strive to have every member of Lettings staff ARLA licensed within one year of joining and we proudly promote our membership on our website, in our windows, in advertising, on letting boards, in fact, in any communication with clients. Membership of a regulatory body is the best generic tool we have as an industry to set ourselves apart, not only from non members who perhaps aim to secure business through lower fee levels, but perhaps more importantly, from the industry rogues.

We must all promote our professionalism!

And we should take every opportunity to underscore to clients the benefits of using a member of a regulatory body, with all the reassurances that adherence to a strict code of conduct can bring to a client. One thing is certain; non-members will not explain to their clients what they are missing out on. As members, we all hold professional indemnity insurance as a requirement, we are rightly obliged to operate proper separate client accounts, governed by a client money protection scheme and our clients have recourse to a formal complaints procedure – all extremely reassuring for both landlord and tenant and something we should be shouting about.

As an industry, we need to be much better at explaining to clients what exactly they are paying for. In opting for a regulated agent, landlords and tenants are contracting the services of professionally trained and qualified staff. We should be promoting these facts and helping to boost awareness of the membership of these regulatory bodies such as ARLA.

We should also be highlighting to landlords the importance of good advice and of keeping up to date with legislative change, to avoid finding themselves on the wrong side of ever changing legislation. Take, for example, the recent Immigration Reform which will require landlords to check the immigration status of new tenants, which no doubt their letting agent will be doing on their behalf. This is a serious piece of legislation, which – like other legislative changes before it – could have serious consequences for those who fail to comply.

The future

It’s time for the industry to take responsibility for its own image. We have much to shout about and much at stake if we don’t promote our own professionalism – a case of separating the wheat from the chaff. If we all pull together to get our message out, this will hopefully go beyond tenant and landlord and reach a far wider audience of industry commentators and policy makers alike in
order to educate them.

Indeed, education – on all levels, whether landlord or tenant, policy maker or commentator – is perhaps the most important tool in our armoury.