Mystery surrounds the ARLA membership status of Rentify, which says on its website that it is a proud member of the organisation – despite its apparent anti-agent stance.
The firm is encouraging landlords to avoid letting agents while still being able to list their properties on Rightmove and Zoopla.
When we carried the story on Tuesday, some readers said that Rentify did not appear to be a member of ARLA. One poster said that ARLA had confirmed they were not members and would be contacting Rentify. LAT was also asked to follow up the matter by this poster.
However, it appears (see link below) that on June 18, Rentify was an ARLA member.
Also, in a Twitter exchange with Henry Pryor, following our story, the firm gave its ARLA membership number as M0191146.
A spokesperson for Rentify, which is still showing the ARLA logo on its site, described the matter as “odd”.
She said: “Rentify has an ARLA membership number and has certainly not heard from ARLA that the membership has lapsed in any way. Indeed, they would be interested to know who at ARLA seems to be informing other members that this is the case?
“Rentify has been in touch with ARLA today and are in the process of clarifying this position.”
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Comments
Seems to me like they shouldn't be. With the boasted aim of facilitating landlords to circumvent what little regulation exists in the industry [adherence to a code of conduct] and to circumvent the portal regulations preventing private landlords or vendors advertising directly. Thisseems to be a quasi Agency in every sense set up to undercut and undermine ARLA and its members.
It will be really interesting to see where ARLA's loyalty lies and if they do justify this lot retaining ARLA membership on what grounds.
There is at least one poster on here pointing out the wounds to a once well respect trade body, let's hope this doesn't turn out to be a nasty spot to add to their embarrassment. Lance it or treat it?