The NAEA and ARLA have new Presidents who took office on Friday night.

At the enjoyable bash at the Savoy, Simon Gerrard and Valerie Bannister both received the warmest of welcomes.

Gerrard paid tribute to his predecessor Jan Hytch and NAEA managing director Mark Hayward, saying that they had seen 4,500 members face to face in the last year – an achievement he planned to build on.

Saying he was passionate about property, he referred to the recent programme on agents, Under Offer.

Joking that his own firm would never take part in “one of those cheap reality programmes” – his own firm, Martyn Gerrard, was in a notorious Mary Portas TV show – he said that Under Offer showed most agents to be hard working, honest and determined to do a good job.

“But there are still too many unscrupulous agents bringing our profession into disrepute,” he said.

In her speech – delivered with astonishing fluency and entirely without notes – Valerie Bannister said that the private rented sector was “the phoenix rising from the ashes”.

She recalled how when she started her career 30 years ago, lettings was relegated to back offices or basements. Now, lettings had been “let out”.

She said: “We must get regulation into the private rented sector. One  in six of us is living in a private rented home and this number will only increase.”

But, with a general election looming, she warned that “letting agents will be used as a political football”.

She said that the voice of ARLA would be heard – “and it will be the voice of reason against a climate of political posturing”.

Bannister also made a final presentation to ARLA managing director Ian Potter, who has now left and is succeeded by David Cox.

Earlier in the evening, Potter told Eye that later this summer he will start working part-time for ARLA in the capacity of a compliance consultant.

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