You must keep clear and full written (*) records (*) of your relationship with landlords and tenants for at least six years. Those records must be produced when required by the Ombudsman.
The Property Ombudsman Code of Practice For Residential Letting Agents (August 2014)
Let me set the scene. Mr Daltry is a tenant in one of your managed properties. He's generally a good tenant but he has a real bee in his bonnet because about two weeks ago (he can't remember the date) and told a member of your team (he can't remember the person's name) that his freezer wasn't working.
Now Mr Daltry is on the phone to you, the head of the agency, demanding recompense for all of the food that he has had to throw away. What's clear is that no one in the office remembers taking a call from Mr Daltry and that the next month's rent is unlikely to be made in full.
Perhaps the phone was answered by a temp, someone who has left your agency, is on holiday or a usually diligent member of staff who slipped. Either way, there is no record of the call, of what was said or what was promised.
Imagine now, that Mr Daltry has heard of the Property Ombudsman or seen reference to TPOS on your window. He gets in touch with them and you are asked to provide a copy of your written records of the communication.
Not a nice situation to be in. And things are unlikely to get better soon as you also have to talk with your client about the likely shortfall in the next rental payment.
Now let's look at the situation for the hundreds of letting agents using Fixflo.
Mr Daltry has a problem with his freezer. He is referred to the letting agency's website and is automatically guided through a picture-based system to identify his precise issue, add any relevant photos and give them the information they need.
His property manager gets a clear concise email into his inbox which is time and date stamped. Mr Daltry also automatically gets a copy of the issue report.
The scope for misunderstanding has been reduced and you have a clear record of the communication if there is a dispute.
Put simply, this is repair reporting the way it should be.
If your office has notes about repairs on scraps of paper or you're relying on the staff remembering the details of every call perhaps now might be a good time to see how you can get your repairs in order.
It might help to highlight that our recent survey of clients indicates that having a Fixflo system saves them, on average, over one third of the man-time it takes to manage a repair from report to resolution.
Or to point out that Fixflo is available to tenants in over 40 languages helping them comply with the London Rental Standard and the Property Ombudsman requirements.
Instead, we'd prefer that you just take 78 seconds to look at this video and if you're interested in finding out more get in touch.
Fixflo in 90 Seconds! from Fixflo on Vimeo.
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