Celia supports better standards from Letting Agents

Celia Barlow MP has joined the association of Residential Lettings Agents (ARLA) at the launch of a new Licensing scheme that promotes the highest standards for letting agents in the UK.

 

The Labour MP for Hove pledged to support the introduction of competency standards for all letting and property management agents.

Celia Barlow MP said: "Hundreds of thousands of pounds of consumers' money is lost each year to unprotected, unprofessional and unethical letting agents. The rental sector is a growing market and we need to ensure that consumers' interests are protected in every letting transaction."

A growing number of tenants and landlords are losing out to cowboy agents in several ways, including loss of funds through a lack of client money protection, no professional indemnity insurance in place to protect consumers and poor advice to landlords (for example about their legally-required deposit protection responsibilities), which can result in loss of the deposit for tenants and/or a fine for landlords.