On the day that membership of a redress scheme becomes mandatory for letting agents, one of the three stipulated redress organisations has reported a sharp increase in the number of consumer complaints about the private rental sector.
The figures, published in The Property Ombudsman's 2014 interim report, reveal that 1,187 complaints were resolved in total about both sales and lettings issues between January 1 and June 30 this year with 721 complaints (61 per cent) made against letting agents - that's a 37 per cent increase on the same period last year.
The Property Ombudsman upheld 74 per cent of the complaints made by landlords and tenants against letting agents. TPO Christopher Hamer says his is now the largest redress scheme with 11,744 lettings offices.
Complaints against both sales and lettings agents rose by 37 per cent overall with 1,187 cases reviewed, of which 721 were against letting agents and 544 were against sales agents - the latter figure indicating a 42 per cent rise.
Hamer says: At August 1 over 13,200 sales offices and 11,600 letting offices were registered with TPO. We estimate that these figures represent 95 per cent of sales agents and 65 per cent of lettings agents operating within the UK.
Comments
'Surge in lettings complaints'
From the TPO site.....
'The service is free of charge for the public'
Surprise! surprise! As with anything free it will eventually be abused.
In my view this is happening and will continue to increase.
Make a small charge and then see..................