TPO expels six agents including one refusing to pay £22,000 award

Six estate agencies are the latest to be excluded from The Property Ombudsman scheme with all the cases involving lettings or property management.

These are London firms Reptons and Cook Estates, Assured Estate Agents in Blackburn, Derbyshire firm Vanquish Letting Services Limited, block management firm Goldfield Properties Limited and Ideal Location Essex.

Three of the most serious cases are expulsions involving either the non-payment of rent or guaranteed rent to landlords or the unfair witholding of funds due to tenants.

The other three cases, which are smaller beer, involve complaints by landlords and leaseholders over unauthorised fee deductions, poor communications or bad property management.

Awards

But all the cases involve agents which have refused to pay compensatory awards or ignored TPO’s investigations.

All of the firms can no longer trade legally as agents after being referred to TPO’s Compliance Committee and excluded from its scheme, and will not be able to register with any other redress schemes.

The cases have been referred to both local and national Trading Standards organisations for further investigation.

However, as is often the case with TPO’s excluded firms, four of the firms (Goldfield, Ideal, Cook Estates and Vanquish) are no longer trading while Assured has phoenixed into AE1 Lettings Ltd.

The most egregious and high-value case involved Reptons, which TPO found to have not abided by the terms of a guaranteed rent agreement. This included an obligation to return the property in good condition and pay rent during any void period whilst repairs were undertaken.

This firm continues to trade – now illegally – after ignoring a compensatory award to the landlord of £22,000.