Communities secretary announces crackdown on unfair managing agents
At ARMA’s Annual Conference on Wednesday 18th October, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid announced plans for a fairer property management system to protect leaseholders from the small minority of rogue agents.
As part of this new call for evidence, Government is seeking views on whether a regulatory overhaul is needed to improve the professionalism of the sector and to protect consumers from unfair costs and practices.
Citing examples of rogue agents overcharging leaseholders he singled out ARMA members as “the good guys”.
The Communities Secretary said: “This is supposed to be the age of the empowered consumer – yet in property management, we’re still living in the past.
“Our proposed changes to regulate the industry will give landlords, renters and leaseholders the confidence they need to know that their agents must comply with the rules."
ARMA’s CEO, Dr Nigel Glen, stated “We are delighted that the Communities Secretary chose the ARMA Conference to announce this welcome shift in policy. We have long campaigned for the sector to be regulated and will do all we can to assist the Government in delivering a regulatory regime across the industry.”
In the absence of statutory legislation, ARMA introduced the ‘ARMA-Q Standards’ self-regulatory regime for its members in 2015. These set high standards for residential leasehold block management and members are required to meet these standards.
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