Home > Information > NLA Index

Government fails to regulate Lettings Agents

from "UK Landlord" magazine, January 2007

ARLA, the Association of Residential Letting Agents, has taken the government to task for failing to legislate for licensing or any other form of control in the sector.

ARLA believes that the Consumer Bill, announced in the Queen's Speech in November 2006, was the ideal opportunity for government to license agents. Yet the Bill contained no consumer safeguards for landlords and tenants using over 8,000 unregulated agents, who between them, ARLA estimates, handle £12 billion a year in rents, drawn from property assets worth £250 billion.

"This is a lost opportunity to protect the consumer in that part of the private rented sector where the professional bodies cannot reach," said Adrian Turner, Chief Executive of ARLA. "We can only control our own members and they are less than half the total number of agents out there." ARLA calculates that a typical unregulated local letting agent with around 15 0 properties on their books will be handling over £30 million in rent from managed and let-only properties every year with no qualifications, no compliance controls and no system of redress. Also at issue is the safety of those living in rented property. "Recent tragic events have pointed up the constant need for proper safety checks," said Adrian Turner.

Rugg Review:
The Independent Review of the Private Rented Sector has been published. See how it affects you.

What's new?
• Scottish landlords face huge fines over EPCs
• NLA review of 2008
• Iain Wright’s speech to the NLA National Conference
• A match made in heaven?
• 71% of landlords expecting increase in rental arrears
• NLA: buy-to-let landlords not covered by payment holiday plan