Who’s Letting Your Home?
When you put your trust in an agency to manage your valuable buy-to-let investment, you need to know that they are reputable, reliable, liquid and operating to professional standards. There are numerous scare stories of fraudulent lettings agents who have disappeared overnight taking landlords’ rent and deposit payments with them.
At Capital Estate Agents, we have been asked to take over the property management for houses that have been damaged by unscrupulous tenants. The worst case being a luxury flat that had been used as a cannabis farm. A devastated landlord eventually found out from neighbours about their suspicions by which time the ‘letting agent’ could not be contacted.
The property journals are full of news of fines issued to agents who have flouted the law in relation to residential rentals and their case has been taken to court, sometimes resulting in the landlord receiving a large fine and/or the agent. Here are some recent examples:
· A lettings management company in Bristol, Iletpro Ltd, was ordered to pay a total of £2,500 fines and costs for failing to obtain HMO licences for two properties. The council spokesman said, “This is an important prosecution as Iletpro were appointed by the landlord in good faith, believing what the lettings management company had advertised.”
· In March 2021, a lettings agency in the Midlands called Homepoint went into liquidation owing almost £500,000 in rent to landlords and in debt to a total £1.3m.
· A number of buy-to-let landlords who let their properties through big player Purplebricks in 2021 potentially face fines running into thousands of pounds after it emerged that the online estate agency had not placed their tenants’ deposits in a government-backed tenancy deposit scheme, allegedly due to an IT glitch.
When choosing a Lettings Agent, our tips would be to look for the following:
1. Proof that they register deposits with one of the 3 government approved schemes:
· Deposit Protection Service (DPS)
· MyDeposits
· Tenancy Deposit Scheme
When a deposit is lodged, you should receive evidence from that independent body. At Capital Estate Agents we use the Tenancy Deposit Scheme
2. The agent must be members of one of the approved client money protection schemes (CMP). There’s a list of approved CMP schemes on the government website. This is the protection required in case the agent goes bust. Letting agents must have a certificate confirming their CMP membership, and display it prominently in their offices and on their website.
3. Mandatory rules also require letting agents to hold client money in an account with an FCA-authorised bank, and to have appropriate professional indemnity insurance in place.
Ask to see the agent’s certificates that demonstrate the above 3 elements are in place.
Independently you can look for client testimonials which are current, from landlords as well as tenants and go back over a reasonably long period. They may be on Google or a site such as All Agents. Capital Estate Agents are very proud of our 5-star reviews on All Agents, 4.8 and 4.7 on Google across our Sidcup and Bromley branches who have 167 reviews between them.
For advice without obligation, call us on 0208 313 0010 or email our team at Capital Estate Agents. We are always happy to help: info@capitalestateagents.com