An agent who failed to protect tenants’ deposits has pleaded guilty in a long-running saga.
Helen Gregory, of Chesterfield, was charged on three counts of fraud in July last year and appeared before magistrates in August.
She has now admitted three charges, relating to each of three companies, of engaging in unfair commercial practices, in a prosecution brought by Trading Standards.
The charges related to three businesses in Matlock and Chesterfield, Derbyshire: Beechwood Lettings, Beechwood Property Portfolio, and Letzlet.
Between them, the charges relate to a time period spanning April 1, 2007, and October 2012.
The local Matlock Mercury (link below) specifically cites the Deposit Protection Service, with earlier stories saying that money had never been paid in.
Gregory, who had earlier pleaded not guilty to the three charges of fraud, will be sentenced on September 15.
The matter attracted a lengthy Facebook thread. There are also accusations on the allAgents site from both landlords and tenants relating to retained money.
In February 2012, the Property Ombudsman expelled Beechwood after it failed to pay an award made against it, and had delayed paying rent into a complainant landlord’s account on 12 occasions over a period of 19 months.
A month later, the TPO said Beechwood Property Portfolio was illegally displaying the TPO logos for both sales and lettings, despite not belonging to a redress scheme. The firm was continuing to sell homes.
TPO had earlier delayed the expulsion of Letzlet, trading as Beechwood Lettings, while the complainant landlord was helped to obtain a county court judgment of £2,176.
http://www.matlockmercury.co.uk/news/local/matlock-estate-agent-admits-shame-1-6783372
Everything is wrong about the industry and redress systems. It is a reactive process open to wide spread fraud as no-one is actually being pro-active and policing which leaves the flood gates open for fraudsters, who think no-one is looking at what they are up to. The police say for every criminal they catch, there were many thefts before they were caught. The politicians answer is regulation and licensing, but that is also reactive (cost saving for them)….. "after the fact" scenario. What this industry needs is pro-active policing but the OFT do not have the time or resources, actual investigation would be near impossible to cover the industry…… so we are back to that old chestnut "licensing" where at the stroke of a pen your written off BUT "after being caught"!
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