Two-thirds of renters do not consider if their letting agent or landlord is licenced (64%), according to a recent report from the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA).
The study revealed that for those who didn't consider whether their landlord or agent was licenced, over half (54%) said it didn't even cross their mind to check, while nearly a quarter, (23%) did not know that letting agents or landlords should be licensed. An alarming one in 10 (12%) wrongly assumed that all letting agents and landlords were licensed and therefore do not know the difference in standards they can expect.
This lack of knowledge around the industry may be the reason for many problems which arise during a tenancy. The research found before they'd signed on the dotted line, more than one in five tenants (22%) had concerns about their landlord or letting agent; doubling to 43% amongst Londoners. The most common problems faced by would-be tenants at this stage were lack of clarity around fees (8%), agents not knowing enough about the property (6%), being pushy (6%) and not turning up to appointments (6%).
Whilst 45% haven't had any problems with their landlord or letting agent over the past five years, over half (55%) of the tenant population have experienced at least one problem. The most common issue which affected nearly a third of renters (31%), was the amount of time it had taken to fix any problems such as boilers, heating and electricity. Once a problem was flagged, tenants had to wait 36 days on average for the issue to be resolved and an unfortunate one in seven never had their problems sorted.
The next most common problem affecting renters was landlords not replacing old items such as kitchen cupboards and worn carpets (18%). For one in seven tenants (14%), the biggest problem was they felt their complaints fell on deaf ears.
David Cox, managing director of the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA), said: Our home is our castle, and there is no reason for it to not be fit for a king. Just because you rent a property it should not impact your levels of enjoyment, especially as there is such a high price to pay for renting. For anyone looking to rent, there are basic boxes to tick to ensure you receive the best possible end result - and this starts with choosing your letting agent and landlord. Choosing an unlicensed letting agent could leave tenants with a long list of problems.
For over a third (37%) of tenants, the problems they experienced with their landlord or letting agent led to them being stressed and one in six (16%) admitted to having sleepless nights. As well as emotional results, many tenants were also left out of pocket, with 14% spending a lot of their own money, and nearly one in 10 (9%) moving out of the property and unfairly losing their deposit.
While problems can of course arise during a tenancy agreement, using an ARLA licenced agent gives tenants peace of mind that any issues can be dealt with in a professional and safe manner. Our research shows that some renters have learnt from their mistakes, as one in eight said they are more likely to look for a licenced letting agent in the future, said Cox. It will only be through qualification and ongoing professional development, backed up by appropriate regulation, that we will eliminate the rogue landlords and agents who blight our industry. ARLA would like to see a fully regulated industry to build a better, stronger private rented sector.
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Comments
Accepting that you will never please 100% of all tenants is the first thing that agents should learn, I had a tenant call at 5.20pm on Christmas eve to report her built in oven had failed. I tracked down my appliance engineer at his golf club and asked if he could help. He left and collected a spare replacement oven that he had in stock and had it around to the property and fitted by 6.45.
I thought that was pretty good service myself.
However, I got dogs abuse from her when I returned to the office on boxing day, how DARE I ruin her christmas by supplying a [u]brown[/u] oven when I knew that her kitchen was all [u]white[/u], and she felt humiliated and embarrassed in front of her family!!! On the strength of that she told friends and colleagues that we were 'uncaring' agents as I found out later.
So I'm quite sceptical about this sort of survey as the questions are quite often loaded to push the answer in a particular direction; not necessarily for any malicious purpose but usually because the surveyor doesn't have a working knowledge of the industry.
Asking whether a tenant had unfair deductions made from his deposit is going to get a a fairly high answer; checking to see if those deductions were in fact justified is going to reduce it by a lot.
I'm a licensed ARLA agent and even I couldn't tell you the difference
There is massive room for improvement within the PRS and I am all for training and education within the industry. But some of these stats are promoted as bad when it would be difficult to fix the problem any quicker. There are occassions when i send contractors to broken appliances that we try to fix, but can't and then we end up replacing them. This can take time especially if tenants don't make themselves available for contractors. To have an accurate comparison we would need to be asking owner occupiers how long it takes them to fix their own boiler or better still find out how long the Council takes to sort problems in social housing.
We have had occasions where we have replaced broken boilers with new in less than 24 hours from receiving the first fault report, but the tenant is still unhappy.
Guest(PrMan) bring on some regulation, the industry is pretty poor at self regulation
Anthony
Agreed. The industry doesn't help itself sometimes. There needs to be consistency across the board when it comes to agents, tenants, landlords, etc. There needs to be better communication to avoid the problems mentioned above.
The reason people are confused is because the industry causes this confusion. There is no such thing as a "licensed" letting agent in the true meaning of the word as there is no official method of licensing. What ARLA speaks of is a dubious marketing tool that is bought by some agents but obviously not the public. It's time to stop kidding the public that they are getting something they are not. Instead, ARLA should be playing to its real strength and that's the professional standards it helps engender through its training. Forget all this licence stuff, it means nothing and adds nothing of value to landlords and tenants. Next thing, ARLA could start suggesting its members are "regulated" and open up another can of worms. Heaven forbid!