Thanks to an amendment to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill tabled by Housing Minister Mark Prisk prior to enactment of the Bill in April, property managers and lettings agents must now belong to an approved redress scheme, or ombudsman, in the same way that managing agents who are members of ARMA already do. This will give landlords and tenants an official route for dealing with any complaints they may have.
ARMA members are already required to subscribe to an Ombudsman scheme and so should already meet the terms of any new Government requirement. ARMA Chief Executive Michelle Banks is in favour of April’s amendment to the Bill as she believes it will prove “… very helpful to ARMA members, by making sure that all managing agents (and letting agents) whether ARMA members or not, will have to comply.”
The decision has also been welcomed by Cheshire and London based Premier Estates. Managing Director Ben Jordan, who is also ARMA chairman (see pages 34-35 of this issue for an interview with Ben) commented: “Premier Estates are already members of an ombudsman scheme so our customers already have this level of protection. Extending this requirement to all managing agents is a welcome step in the right direction and certainly good news for the residential leasehold sector overall. Leaseholders who suffer poor service at the hands of their managing agent will be able to seek effective redress, whether or not the agent subscribes to a professional body.”
However, Michelle pointed out that in order to help make the sector better for landlords and tenants, the Government’s amendment “will need to survive the remaining stages of the Parliamentary procedure and we expect there to be further consultations about how the new regulatory requirements would operate”.
