Compliance among letting agents now required to belong to a redress scheme looks to be very high, the Property Ombudsman has said.

Christopher Hamer said that at the start of this year, 3,000 letting agents across England – where the requirement was implemented on October 1 – were identified as not belonging to TPO.

Since then, 1,000 have joined TPO and 1,400 are said to have joined the new Property Redress Scheme. An unknown further number have joined Ombudsman Services.

Hamer said: “This means that fewer than 500 letting agents are now not signed up. I would put the number at perhaps 200.”

He said it was incorrect to claim that some 40% of letting agents had not signed up, saying that such a figure originally emanated from him but dates back some years. He said it was surprising it was still being quoted.

A spokesperson for the Property Redress Scheme told us yesterday evening: “Based on the list we were working on previous to the October 1 deadline, we estimated that 40% of agents had not joined a redress scheme.

“Now with our membership of nearly 2,000 and suggestions TPO have added 1,000 members, this 40% figure will have reduced, but we have not had a chance to calculate exact numbers.”