Lettings agent Sharon Price of Price Properties in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire was recently fined 3,000 by magistrates for failing to repay 90,000 worth of funds to her clients. Her reason for not passing on rental payments from tenants was, she claimed, ill health, although there was evidence that her staff set up payments to be made which she cancelled the following day.
The property industry has regulatory schemes, such as the NAEA (National Association of Estate Agents), of which Ms Price was a member. Set up in 1962, the NAEA is here to oversee estate agents and 'uphold good practice and high professional standards in UK estate agency'. By choosing an NAEA accredited agent, says their website, you are 'safeguarded and you can be secure in the knowledge that you and your property are in safe hands'.
Any commercial agency with costs and overheads needs to sell itself and its services, as in the case of the NAEA, which proclaims itself to have a sound set of principles and is therefore a complete guarantee of good practice. Sadly, though, cases like the Sharon Price incident means that if an estate agent belongs to an association like the NAEA, it's no guarantee that it won't try and con you out of your hard-earned cash.
Peter Bolton King, the NAEA's Chief Executive is said to have concerns about the leniency shown to Ms Price in the form of such a small fine, especially considering the evidence that she had been running a 'chaotic and shambolic business' and had overseen 'mismanagement, negligence and a lack of professionalism'. In fact, even though a staff member had raised concerns, the withholding of deposits and rents had been going on for more than a year.
Does this mean, then, that even though Mr Bolton King had misgivings about the way the courts handled this case, his own regulatory body wasn't exactly on the ball either? What abbot auditing, ongoing scrutiny, checks and unannounced visits? Trade bodies that claim to oversee their members shouldn't take an annual subscription and then poke criticism at others when all is obviously not well with any individual member.
If overseeing members of a regulatory body means make sure the public is protected from unscrupulous dealings, then the NAEA needs to think long and hard about what it claims to have been doing ... and what, in this instance at least, it actually does. There are other associations within the property industry, like ARLA, the Association of Residential Lettings Agents. But the only association that will actually compensate a customer if one of its members has caused financial loss is the Property Ombudsman Scheme.
The property industry has regulatory schemes, such as the NAEA (National Association of Estate Agents), of which Ms Price was a member. Set up in 1962, the NAEA is here to oversee estate agents and 'uphold good practice and high professional standards in UK estate agency'. By choosing an NAEA accredited agent, says their website, you are 'safeguarded and you can be secure in the knowledge that you and your property are in safe hands'.
Any commercial agency with costs and overheads needs to sell itself and its services, as in the case of the NAEA, which proclaims itself to have a sound set of principles and is therefore a complete guarantee of good practice. Sadly, though, cases like the Sharon Price incident means that if an estate agent belongs to an association like the NAEA, it's no guarantee that it won't try and con you out of your hard-earned cash.
Peter Bolton King, the NAEA's Chief Executive is said to have concerns about the leniency shown to Ms Price in the form of such a small fine, especially considering the evidence that she had been running a 'chaotic and shambolic business' and had overseen 'mismanagement, negligence and a lack of professionalism'. In fact, even though a staff member had raised concerns, the withholding of deposits and rents had been going on for more than a year.
Does this mean, then, that even though Mr Bolton King had misgivings about the way the courts handled this case, his own regulatory body wasn't exactly on the ball either? What abbot auditing, ongoing scrutiny, checks and unannounced visits? Trade bodies that claim to oversee their members shouldn't take an annual subscription and then poke criticism at others when all is obviously not well with any individual member.
If overseeing members of a regulatory body means make sure the public is protected from unscrupulous dealings, then the NAEA needs to think long and hard about what it claims to have been doing ... and what, in this instance at least, it actually does. There are other associations within the property industry, like ARLA, the Association of Residential Lettings Agents. But the only association that will actually compensate a customer if one of its members has caused financial loss is the Property Ombudsman Scheme.
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