Ombudsman offers two-tier membership

One of the three new redress schemes for the letting sector has revealed that it is to operate a two-tier system for agents.

The Property Redress Scheme - operated by insurance firm Hamilton Fraser, which also runs Mydeposits on behalf of the NLA - says it will offer an entry' service at £95 per branch.

In the event of a complaint, the member agent will be given 10 working days to resolve the issue before Property Redress Scheme intervenes. But the PRS company will then charge the member agent a flat fee of £60 or £90 for the resulting investigation.

The second tier - called the enhanced' service - will be a £199 per branch flat fee, for which there would be no additional charges in the event of complaints.

However, the firm says it has the right as a very last resort to move a member agent from enhanced' back to entry' if there are too many complaints to handle for the flat fee.

PRS ombudsman Sean Hooker, in an interview with LAT, says the firm is targetting those 40 per cent of letting agents thought to be currently outside any redress scheme. All agents must be in one of the three schemes by October 1.

Hooker says he is consulting with all members of the lettings community and that agents who do not join, or join and fall foul of the redress regulations, should be under no illusion that they will escape sanction.

We will share information with the other redress schemes about miscreant agents he says, promising that ultimately they will lose their business if they are denied entry to a redress scheme as a result of multiple misdemeanours.

The other two redress schemes approved for the lettings industry are The Property Ombudsman and Ombudsman Services.