Kitemark service SAFEagent is lobbying the government to make it mandatory for all lettings to be linked to a Client Money Protection scheme which offers recompense to tenants and landlords should an agent misappropriate or fraudulently use clients' money.
SAFEagent chair John Midgley has written to the new housing minister Brandon Lewis on the issue and is urging all letting agents using the SAFEagent kitemark to write to their local MPs to ensure this issue moves up the political agenda in the run up to the May 7 2015 general election.
The SAFEagent campaign, established in 2011 and now with over 3,000 offices around the country, was set up to raise consumer awareness of the importance of checking that an agent is part of a recognised CMP scheme. Not only are all agents bearing the SAFEagent logo part of CMP Schemes, they are also part of recognised industry agent organisations who monitor their compliance, offering additional consumer protection.
With the government continuing to deliver positive measures to improve renting and letting such as mandatory membership of redress schemes, we are urging them not to miss this opportunity to make it mandatory for agents to provide financial protection for their clients and customers explains Midgley.
SAFEagent says this could be done through an amendment to the Consumer Rights Bill, currently going through parliament.
It does not make sense that agents who handle clients' money on a daily basis do not even have to operate a designated client account or can disappear with the contents of that account with no recompense for the consumer, unless they are part of a CMP Scheme he says.
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