The Association of Independent Inventory Clerks (The AIIC) has unsurprisingly welcomed the launch of a new deposit protection service that requires all tenancy agreements to include a mandatory check in and check out inventory report.

Ome, a new deposit alternative brand launched by Hamilton Fraser, includes its own adjudication service HF Resolution, which already provides services to many of the existing deposit alternatives.

Ome, which aims to address a number of market changes, includng the introduction of the tenant fee ban and mandatory client money protection, is designed to provide landlords with the exact same financial protections that they would receive with a traditional deposit scheme, according to Hamilton Fraser. 

Danny Zane, chair of The AIIC and MD for My Property Inventories, commented: “It has long been on the cards in today’s private rented sector for deposit schemes to require solid inventory reporting in order to protect all parties within a tenancy as well as provide forensic evidence of how a property was handed over and then subsequently returned in a fair and impartial manner”.

“There has been a lot of talk regarding mandatory inventory reporting on the way and we look forward to this for all concerned parties. 

“It can be considered somewhat troubling that no current protection scheme has been able to state that [inventory] reports must be compiled via a third party supplier but we acknowledge that deposit scheme membership comes from letting agents and so this creates a conundrum of sorts with letting agents sometimes wishing to make money with reporting or landlords perhaps looking to save money in the short term.

“As well as this compiling biased reports can take control of deposit returns and or tenancy situations, of which we are seeing more and more evidence of”.

Zane added: “We have been talking to one deposit scheme that acknowledges that reporting should be left to a third party, but I feel we are some way off this being stated until the Ministry of Housing act on requiring reporting to be mandatory via a fair and independent third party”.

“Hamilton Fraser are an amazing market disrupter with this launch and we are all very excited about Ome.

“This is an independent service with its own adjudication service that will require evidence based reporting at both the start and end of a tenancy agreement. This feels like the start of the future in the private rented sector”.