Lettings Helpline and legal advisors hailed as major success

Propertymark says its Lettings Helpline for agent members in England and Wales has become “an essential membership benefit for dealing with lettings issues no matter how complex.”

Since October last year the line has taken more than 7,200 calls regarding hundreds of different topics, and the trade body claims the popularity of the service continues to grow at pace with significant numbers of positive and highly recommended reviews on Google.

Sharon Parnell, Team Leader of the Lettings Helpline, comments: "We’ve had everything from how to manage bats and bees, to abandoned cars, to dealing with deceased tenants with no next of kin. Every day is different, and we are constantly awestruck by the sheer dedication and the amount of work our members do for their clients and customers.

"Not only do they do a fantastically professional job as letting agents, but they go above and beyond all the time – including one member agent who took care of a tenant’s cat for a week when she was in hospital."

As well as assisting with day-to-day lettings queries, the team also has several legal specialists to handle more complex enquiries and where a bespoke solution is essential, these specialists can be further instructed by member agents to work on their behalf.

In addition to the growing range of fact sheets and information already on the membership area of the Propertymark website, new interactive FAQ pages will be launched soon, all exclusively available to members 24/7.

Parnell continues: “The search by topic function will put hundreds of new solutions and answers at the fingertips of our members. We know our members work long hours sometimes and don’t always have time to pick up the phone within their working day - so this will hopefully be a further resource to help on demand."

The next evolution of the membership helpline is to recruit regional legal specialists to further support the helpline offering to all the devolved nations, and across the other property disciplines, so those working in residential, commercial sales and auctioneering have the same wide-ranging resources to tap into.