Merseyside estate agents have backed calls from The Property Ombudsman’s (TPO) for a Property Agent’s Act.

In his final report as TPO, Christopher Hamer, advocated for the introduction of a new act that would, “update the Estate Agents Act 1979 to reflect developments in the sales market and most relevantly now, bring lettings into a precise framework where all agent activity is covered by one piece of legislation.”

Christopher goes on to suggest that the licensing of agents, compulsory client money protection and standardised tenancy agreements could all be areas incorporated into such an act.

The TPO’s announcement followed a report that claimed 9,141 tenants have contacted The Property Ombudsman to register property issues in the last year. 5,303 of these enquiries were lettings related – almost twice as many as reported for sales.

Local agents have welcomed Christopher’s comments.

Karl Tatler, managing director of Karl Tatler Estate Agents & Lettings, says, “ We completely agree with and support the Property Ombudsman’s suggestion to include lettings within a Property Agents Act. Maintaining the highest standards in the lettings industry and protecting the interests of landlords is extremely important to us – and we have in fact operated in this way for many years.

“This is one of the reasons why we are licensed members of regulatory body ARLA and all members of our letting staff are trained and qualified to the National Federation of Property Professionals (NFoPP) standard. Both landlords and tenants should be able to trust they are receiving a service of total professionalism and expertise”

Louis Anastasiou, managing director of Andrew Louis, says, “The rental sector has grown considerably over the last 10 years  and we are finding more would-be buyers have become renters and this is one reason why complaints may have gone up.

“Complaints may also have grown because of new legislation, as it is now a legal requirement for all letting agents in England to join one of three government approved redress schemes, more members means more complaints”

“We certainly want this – we already adhere to a strict code of practice that goes above and beyond the industry standard”

“The property sector needs cleaning up and we need to weed out those rogue letting agents that are not acting in the best interests of the consumer”

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