SAFEagent is calling on the government to use the passage of the Housing Bill through Parliament to make a Client Money Protection scheme a mandatory requirement for all lettings and management agents.
SAFEagent - launched in 2011 and with over 3,000 offices signed up to the consumer awareness campaign - has campaigned to raise consumer awareness among landlords and tenants of the need to ensure they use professional agents who are covered by such a scheme.
“We welcome the positive action the Government is taking to deal with rogue landlords and agents. Mandatory membership of a redress scheme for all agents was a step in the right direction but consumers get no recompense through those schemes if an agent misappropriates their money” explains SAFEWagent chairman John Midgley.
“Only by introducing a mandatory requirement for agents to be included under a CMP scheme can the consumer be afforded that protection” he insists.
Midgley is now writing to housing minister Brandon Lewis on the issue.
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I liked the above comment on the basis that I as a letting agent keep up-to-date with all the legislative changes to ensure we are compliant, yet many in the same town do not and there is absolutely no enforcement.
I am now starting to wonder if I need to bother to comply as everyone else seems to have a competitive edge and even though I am explaining to my landlords why they have been charged for the fitting of smoke alarms/EPCs etc, all they see is that other agents wouldn't be levying such charges on them (despite that they will be doing them a disservice by not being legally compliant)!
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