Search Results for: Tenant Fees Act
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Features
Compulsory purchases in London are ‘social cleansing’
The threat of Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) hangs over ex-local authority leaseholders in London, says Louie Burns, MD at Leasehold Solutions.
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Latest property news
Autumn Statement: Building industry response
The housing industry’s response to the Autumn statement has been mixed – depending on whether your a housebuilder or in lettings, or whether you believe what he says at all! Some like him… “Philip Hammond is something of a political novelty, he is a Chancellor who listens,” says Jeremy Blackburn, RICS Head of Policy as The Chancellor, Philip Hammond finished his Autumn Statement. “Our ‘listening Chancellor’ consulted widely with industry in the build up to today’s statement, as I’m sure he will as Britain moves closer towards Brexit. We haven’t yet seen him pictured in a hard hat, but he clearly understands the housing sector better than his predecessors. “RICS warned Treasury that the UK is facing a critical rental shortfall of 1.8m homes. Our latest figures show that there has been a 15 per cent decline in house sales to first time buyers over recent months. That tells us that for all the rhetoric, David Cameron and George Osborne’s Starter Homes Strategy failed to get off the ground.” We can only hope that Jeremy is right. Other industry comments were varied in their support and/or cynicism. Martin Skinner, CEO Inspired Homes, said: “I am pleased that the Government is recognising the…
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Latest property news
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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Latest property news
PRS expels member
Carter Stones Limited of 1A Connaught Road, Ilford, IG1 1RL has been expelled from the Property Redress Scheme...
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Features
Brexit
A catchy new word that many thought would be trending today, forgotten tomorrow. My goodness, how wrong we were.
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Latest property news
Letting agents under attack again
“Estate agents are really roofless! We all hate estate agents, now here’s another reason,” says a flatsharing website
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Features
Are redress schemes working?
The ‘regulation lite’ system brought in by the Government for sales and lettings agents got cheers all round in 2014. But does it still deliver? Nigel Lewis reports.
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Latest property news
Root out rogue letting agents
NALS launches a toolkit to raise standards in the Private Rented Sector.
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Features
Forward thinking pays dividends
Buy-to-let investors appreciate professional advice from a lettings expert – that’s you! Joanne Christie met some canny lettings advisers who are showing the way.
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Latest property news
The Property Ombudsman expels two Southampton agencies
Consumers are being warned by the UK’s largest property redress scheme about the actions of two lettings agents based in Southampton. Both agencies, trading as ‘The Flat Agency & Michael Browns Ltd’ and ‘Property Vibe Ltd’, were expelled from lettings redress membership of The Property Ombudsman (TPO) scheme for a minimum period of three years. Without registration these companies cannot legally trade as letting agents, and other redress schemes will not allow previously expelled agents to join. Landlords who lease their property with an agent that is not registered with TPO will not be entitled to have their dispute reviewed by the Ombudsman, and nor will any tenants renting through an unregistered agent. The decision to expel The Flat Agency & Michael Browns Ltd follows complaints made against it from local landlords and tenants. The complaints were independently reviewed by the Ombudsman and all were upheld. Cases against this agent were all similar in nature, relating to delay and/or failure in paying money owed to the complainants and several flagged serious concerns with the Ombudsman, who described the agents’ practices as “dishonest and deceitful”. The Ombudsman ordered payment of the money owed together with compensation. When the agent failed to…
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