ARLA’s David Cox
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Latest property news
Tenant fees ban ‘set to change the way rental property ads are written’
Agents will soon have to list which services are being provided as part of the rent when writing rental property ads.
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Latest property news
Letting agents today face new but “pointless” Banning Orders and Rogue Database system
The government’s Banning Orders and Rogue Database system for letting agents has gone live today despite the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) describing the initiative as “disappointing” and “pointless”. From now onwards, landlords or letting agents who are convicted of specific offences can be banned from letting or managing a property for at least 12 months via a Banning Order, and added to the Rogue Database for at least two years. The offences cover the most serious housing and criminal crimes. These include those involving fire and gas safety, Right to Rent, housing benefit fraud, ignoring council improvement notices, collusion in cannabis cultivation or drug dealing, poor HMO management, illegal evictions and violent or sexual offences against tenants. “I am committed to making sure people who are renting are living in safe and good quality properties. That’s why we’re cracking down on the small minority of landlords that are renting out unsafe and substandard accommodation,” says Minister for Housing and Homelessness Heather Wheeler. “Landlords should be in no doubt that they must provide decent homes or face the consequences.” First Tier Tribunal Once convicted, councils can apply to a First Tier Tribunal to have the landlord or agent involved banned…
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Latest property news
Number of managed rental properties drops by 8% during January
The government’s tax-take on landlords is having the effect many predicted it would as the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) reports an 8% reduction in the number of rental properties managed by agents during January. ARLA says its member agents reported 184 rental properties managed per branch compared to 200 during December, the lowest figures for four months. Such an alarming contraction in the market during a traditionally busy period is also taking its toll on tenants’ finances, ARLA says. As the housing market forces more people into rented accommodation rather than ownership, ARLA says the number of tenants registered with agents increased from 59 to 70 per branch. Rough ride ARLA’s Chief Executive David Cox (pictured, below) says renters are in for a “rough ride” this year as the imbalance between supply and demand begins to push up rents. It’s already begun, ARLA claims, revealing that nearly a fifth of tenants experienced rent increases during January, up from 16% during December. The ARLA figures are backed up the latest rental index, which found that rents in the UK are rising across every region for the first time in two years. Buy-to-let lender Landbay, which produced the index, also…
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Revealed: how much rogue estate agents are damaging the industry
The extent to which rogue estate agents are damaging the industry’s reputation has been laid bare today by new research. The problems are most acute in the private rental sector,but affect all of it. For example, 41% of tenants who used an ‘approved’ letting agent signed up to a professional body said problems with their property were fixed within a week, but only 25% of those used an ‘unapproved’ agent received the same service. The research, which covers transactions over the past five years and was completed by Propertymark, highlights the most common problems tenants encounter including poor property management, the slow replacement of faulty furnishings and white goods, and a reluctance to return deposits fast enough. Propertymark’s research also highlights a key challenge faced by the industry as a whole. Rogue estate agents Over a third of buyers and sellers, and 42% of renters don’t bother to check if the agent they are using has signed up to the key regulatory bodies or is a member of a professional organisation – leaving the door open for rogue estate agents. This is creating significant problems for the industry’s reputation, the research shows. Over half of all the buyers, vendors and…
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Industry gathers for The Negotiator Conference & Expo in London
Over 500 sales and lettings agents, proptech innovators, portal senior staff and industry regulators packed the Hilton on Park Lane, London, hotel on Tuesday for the annual The Negotiator Conference & Expo. Highlights of the day’s presentations, panel debates and speeches included time on the podium from The Rt. Hon. Iain Duncan Smith – who talked candidly about the missteps the government has made over Brexit and the housing market. Leading the debates was BBC Radio 4 presenter Justin Webb plus there were appearances from many high profile figures including ARLA’s David Cox, Sir Peter Bottomley, The Guild’s Iain McKenzie, Richard Donnell from Hometrack, Kate Faulkner, Ombudsman Katrine Sporle, Adam Walker, Jeremy Tapp and, at the end of the day, a keynote speech from Countrywide CEO Alison Platt. During that, Alison made the case for a robust property market in the future despite the current headwinds, and also revealed how Countrywide’s digital hybrid roll-out is progressing. There were also lively sessions at the day’s proptech sessions, at which Zoopla Chief Strategy Officer Paul Whitehead said the next 12 months will be a crunch-time for many proptech start-ups. He said it that it was time for many of them to start delivering…
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