The Property Ombudsman has revealed that the scheme has supported 69% of consumer complaints lodged against letting agents in a three month period.
TPO is the largest of three government-approved redress schemes and claims to have more than 85% of UK letting agents registered.
In the three months since 1 October , from which date letting agents were obliged to be in one of the redress schemes, 2,246 tenants and landlords contacted TPO with disputes concerning rental deposits, lettings fees, property viewings, rent collection, tenancy agreements, inventories and reference checks.
TPO’s breakdown of its contacts over the final quarter of the year is as follows:
- 2,246 lettings enquiries (which represented 57% of the 3,962 enquiries raised overall, covering lettings, sales and other property disputes);
- 64% (1,444) of enquiries were raised by tenants, while 36% (802) were made by landlords requesting TPO's dispute resolution service;
- 368 formal lettings complaints (which represented 57% of the 644 property complaints reviewed by TPO, covering lettings, sales and other property disputes);
- 69% of lettings complaints investigated were supported by the Ombudsman.
The core of the issues raised by tenants and landlords were:
- communication failure (23%)
- repairs and maintenance including inventories (16%)
- deposit handling, including holding deposits (12%)
- rent (9%)
- duty of care, such as failure to meet contract pre-conditions (9%).
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