Property Redress Scheme

Property Redress Scheme attracts 3,000 members

More than 3,000 individual residential property agents and professionals are now signed up to the Property Redress Scheme (PRS), new figures show. The new consumer redress scheme for the property industry, authorised by the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and the National Trading Standards Estate Agency Team, aims to provide fair and reasonable resolutions to disputes between property agents and their consumers. It became a legal requirement for all property agents, as defined by legislation, to join a consumer redress scheme on the 1st October 2014. The PRS began trading in the summer of 2014 and was authorised and set up as an alternative to the two other schemes, the Ombudsman Service: Property and The Property Ombudsman, which were already in operation. The PRS claims that prior to 1st October 2014 deadline, there were an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 letting agents that would be required to comply with the new legislation, indicating that many of these previously unregistered agents have chosen to join the PRS. The PRS also claims that its scheme is also seeing an increase in the volume of agents switching from the other schemes now that awareness is spreading that there is another option available…