Following our story on Tuesday about the landlord of a holiday let who had their energy supplier changed by a Countrywide agency, we were contacted by more people who are dissatisfied with the manner in which Countrywide obtains consent for utility switching.

As we understand it, where a Countrywide agency handles the letting and management of a property on behalf of a landlord, the landlord will sign terms of business that, as standard,  contain a clause allowing Countrywide to pass personal data to Spark Energy and for Spark to take over the supply of utilities. In return Countrywide receives a payment from Spark, the amount of which is not disclosed.

The key issues are that the consent sits in the body of the terms and conditions, is not highlighted, and is not flagged up by agency staff when they speak with the client.

More contentiously, the landlord is deemed to give consent to allowing Countrywide to change the utility provider unless they opt out.

We believe that this is not satisfactory – and it seems that The Property Ombudsman agrees.

Katrine Sporle, Property Ombudsman, gave EYE a statement saying:

“Under 5p (Fees and Charges) of TPO’s Codes of Practice for Residential Letting Agents, agents are advised that where your terms of business include options for landlords to use associated and/or recommended services (such as inventory services), landlords should be presented with the opportunity to actively opt-in to use the service.

“Requiring landlords to actively opt-out of any additional or recommended service should be avoided.

Charges made for not using a service must be disclosed in accordance with the CPRs.

“Therefore, we would expect agents to take the same approach to opting-in (rather than opting-out) in relation to changing the energy supplier at a landlord’s property, and actively flag any entitlement to commission as a result.

“Should this become a prominent issue, then we will look to explicitly state this as a requirement in our Codes of Practice.”

From this it seems clear that Countrywide (and other companies using the ‘opted in unless you opt out’ procedure) agencies may need to change their terms of business to give landlords the clear opportunity to positively consent to having their utility provider changed – and to flag the resulting commission entitlement.

EYE approached Ovo/Spark Energy for their reaction to the TPO statement. The company declined to comment.

Countrywide has been contacted for comment.

Countrywide agency switches utility provider – and the property owner objects