After last year’s huge hikes in subscriptions to the Tenancy Deposit Scheme which outraged members, costs are now being reduced.
And the Berlin Wall culture, often complained about because it made communications so difficult, has been destroyed, the chief executive announced at this week’s ARLA conference.
Both subscriptions and the cost of registering each tenancy are to fall from April.
The minimum annual subscription for agents with under 50 tenancies is being reduced from £750 to £500.
The basic fee of £15 for each tenancy for NFoPP and RICS members and £18 for NALS and Law Society members will both fall by a pound. However, only 10% of the whole membership of the TDS will pay these in full.
Steve Harriott said that with the scheme back in a strong financial position, it is keen to do as much as possible for smaller agents and to remain competitive.
The reduction in the cost of tenancy registration leads to a fee of less than £6 per tenancy when coupled with the 60% discount already generated by nearly half the membership.
“Most members who are not eligible for the maximum discount are generating discounts of up to 25%,” he added.
The fall in the cost of subscriptions has been achieved due to changes in the fee structure, despite the rising costs of having to deal with more disputes.
Commenting on changes made within the TDS, Harriott listed some steps taken recently.
These include the Users Forum, which has already met four times, and a programme of ‘Meet the TDS’ events. This programme started last month and the first event was three times oversubscribed.
An e-consultation programme has been launched, together with monthly e-newsletters, and a new member relations team is already active.
“Also very important,” said Harriott, “is the demolition of what was described as a Berlin Wall. All senior managers at TDS can be reached on direct lines now and the call centre can put through enquiries that they are unable to handle themselves.”
* Have YOU received your invoice for this year's subcriptions yet? Do you think it reflects a fair use of the scheme? Your comments, as always, appreciated.
%20-%20IMAGE%20Client%20Accounting%20%E2%80%93%20what%20are%20your%20options.jpg)
.png)
Comments
Jinay - We are fortunate to have recieved the 60% discount (more luck than judgement on our behalf I am sure!). I've looked into the other schemes and TDS still seems the most affordable by far. I've also heard from fellow agents that their service has improved greatly since the start of the scheme. I suppose that being an insuramce backed scheme a one off payment, regardless of the tenancy length, would not work given that the insured risk could not be calculated. Lets hope that the progress to date continues. Alan
What is all this about number of tenancies, number of offices, larger agentss, smaller agents, etc. etc.?
A Tenancy Deposit is just that, wherever it comes from.
As jinay Shah says, it should be registered once and paid for once. Provided no 'claim' is made on that particular deposit that should be that!
We have received a discount of 25% however I feel that for the number of disputes we have had this does not reflect fairly!!! Many of our registered tenancies have been on the TDS system for many years now and I feel that you should only really have to pay once for registering a deposit not every year that it remains on there.