The Dispute Service (TDS) has launched a mediation scheme to help landlords and tenants agree rent repayment plans and avoid costly court hearings.
The service aims to protect tenants from being evicted, which currently cannot take place until August 23, and ensure landlords can still receive some form of rent where arrears have built up.
There is no charge initially for a landlord to instruct TDS Resolution to ask a tenant to enter mediation.
If a tenant agrees, only the landlord has to pay a fee of £150 plus VAT to begin using the mediation service.
If the tenant refuses, a landlord can pay £20 plus VAT for a certificate to demonstrate a refusal to engage.
Users do not have to be using the TDS deposit scheme to access this service and it is endorsed by the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), which is giving members a 25% discount to use the service.
The scheme operates separately from disputes that arise at the end of the tenancy and are dealt with by the TDS deposition protection scheme.
Steve Harriott, chief executive of TDS, said: “In a world where some tenants are in arrears, we felt a service that would bring tenants and landlords together to help negotiate a rent repayment plan would be of real value.
“Our experienced and skilled team already provides a fair and impartial adjudication process for disputes that arise over the tenancy deposits we protect.
“We deal with around 20,000 disputes a year across the UK and quite often we can resolve up to 40 per cent of these each month by using our telephone-based early resolution service.
“We’re excited to be launching this service, which we’re sure will help landlords and tenants find a mutually agreeable way to deal with the tenant’s rent arrears, rather than pursuing the costly and time-consuming route of court.”
Ben Beadle, chief executive of the NRLA, said: “We expect that Covid-19 will have a long-lasting impact on the market.
“Whilst our research shows that the majority of tenants are continuing to pay their rent as normal, we know that some are facing financial difficulties leading to rent arrears as a result of the virus.
“In such circumstances we want to support landlords and tenants to sustain tenancies wherever possible.
“The TDS Resolution service will provide an additional, valuable service to help broker a fair arrears repayment plan without the need to go to court.”
The Property Redress Scheme (PRS) launched a similar service in April that aims to deal with tenancy disputes through mediation and prevent them going to court.
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