Buyers and sellers with grievances about agents will be among those finding it much easier to complain in future.
The Government has proposed setting up a redress reform working group to help establish a single gateway to complaints covering the whole housing market.
The single route will be available to anyone complaining about the housing market, regardless of their tenure, making it much easier for consumers to complain – whether about agents, landlords or developers.
The government response has decided against replacing the existing organisations with just one ombudsman covering all the sectors.
Instead, after much lobbying, the existing redress organisations will stay. The proposed reforms also say that private landlords will have to offer redress, while new-homes developers and leaseholders will each have their own ombudsman.
Housing Secretary James Brokenshire unveiled the plans yesterday for a new Housing Complaints Resolution Service that would provide a “single point of access” to all current schemes.
He said the Government hopes to develop this in collaboration with the redress sector on a voluntary basis, but will use legislation if necessary.
The plans were unveiled in the Government’s response to an eight-week consultation launched last February 2018 on simplifying the complaints system in the housing market.
Under the proposals, private landlords will be legally required to become members of a redress scheme – with a fine of up to £5,000 if they fail to do so.
The consultation also said the Government is committed to establishing a New Homes Ombudsman which developers will have to belong to by 2021 if they wish to participate in the Help to Buy scheme.
There are also plans to introduce legislation making it mandatory for all owners of leasehold properties to be part of a redress scheme.
Katrine Sporle, property ombudsman at The Property Ombudsman (TPO), said: “We support the Government with the objective of providing consumers with a single, swift and effective route to complain when things go wrong, and look to working with the Government and other redress providers to streamline and close the gaps in the existing redress provision.
“This is vital to the future of consumer protection and driving out poor practice in the industry.”
Isobel Thomson, chief executive of the National Approved Lettings Scheme (NALS), said: “For too long consumers have faced difficulty in identifying where to take their property related complaints when each redress scheme has their own specialism. We welcome Government’s recognition that this must change.”
The move was also welcomed by trade bodies NAEA and ARLA Propertymark.
A joint statement from chief executives Mark Hayward and David Cox said: “Propertymark welcomes this approach and is pleased to see the Government taking a holistic approach to redress, right across the property industry, creating the beginnings of a more integrated housing strategy rather than the piecemeal, sectoral and issue-specific approach that we have all had to deal with for too long.”
Matthew Vickers, chief executive and chief ombudsman at Ombudsman Services, said: “We stopped handling housing and property complaints last year because we believed redress in the sector was too complex and wasn’t working for consumers.
“The new proposals represent a step in the right direction and we broadly welcome them, but there is a lot of work still to be done.”
Yes…its a step In the right direction. They should also be qualified to at least Level 3 in the property sector they are trading in.
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am I missing something, how is introducing yet more individual schemes simplifying it ?
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I can recall many cases where I have been brought in to manage wayward landlords and tenants and wonder if this will actually work. While on one side of the coin this seems on paper a good move, the flip side it will become bogged down and unworkable once the rogue tenant with all the free support and lack of accountability start to abuse it. Yes we need to address rogue landlords, but this is one sided and open to abuse.
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How about a mechanism to complain about incompetent MP’s?
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Yet another blunder into the housing sector, by an MP trying to boost votes. I have no doubts that this has been put forward with the best of intentions, but what about fair redress for agents & landlords. It seems the consistent hounding of the PRS sector has now spread to estate agency.
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I think your second point is the strongest. Points one and three are less likely to occur as this is an open community. If you made the subreddit private and limited it to current subscribers I think https://www.assignmentdoer.co.uk/do-my-assignment you might have a shot at those goals.
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