Lettings agents “to be regulated” reveals communities secretary

Communities secretary Sajid Javid has announced a raft of proposed lettings regulations during his speech yesterday at the 2017 Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, while also revealing that the proposed lettings fees ban legislation is about to be published. The most radical of the new proposals is to force letting agents to join a professional organisation and meet “certain minimum standards”, effectively introducing regulation of the industry by the back door. The comment came during a tub-thumping speech that described the housing market as “broken” and that things where so bad he said “Jeremy Corbyn is being taken seriously” about housing – the Labour leader last weekend announced plans to introduced rent controls should labour the voted in at the next election. Sajid also said that although the Conservatives want to see more people own their homes, he admitted the chance of achieving this for many millions of Brits is now much slimmer than previous generations. “People are three times more likely to be renting than before” he said. But as well as saying “all agents must be regulated”, he also revealed several measures aimed at strengthening the “rights of people who rent”. New redress scheme These include requiring all…