Several high-flying lettings sector bodies say rental properties advertised on portals should carry much more upfront information.
This means landlords who use agents advertising on Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket are likely to be told to provide more detailed information and possibly many more photographs than before; depending on their relationship with the letting agents, some of this burden will fall on landlords themselves.
The idea for more information has come from the National Trading Standards Estate and Letting Agents Team, which says current practices from letting agents are patchy and sometimes fall short of requirements under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.
Under these regulations the agents “have a legal obligation not to omit material information from consumers on property listings” according to NTSELAT.
A survey of recent renters and buyers, conducted by NTSELAT, found that:
- 90 per cent of respondents who use portals would prefer to find detailed or key information about a property when they’re searching on a portal;
- 87 per cent of respondents agree that portals should include all key information about a home in their listing;
- over half said that they would be less likely to buy or rent where information was missing on the property listing;
- 40 per cent of respondents assume that missing information means something wrong with the property.
The move for more upfront information is supported by the likes of The Lettings Industry Council, The Property Ombudsman, The Property Redress Scheme and The UK Association of Letting Agents, as well as the major portals and Propertymark - the agents’ main trade body.
Currently further discussions are taking place and there is no deadline for the implementation of new regulations, but NTSELAT says it is drawing up new guidelines for agents - which means landlords may well be expected to provide additional details of properties to prospective tenants in the longer term.
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There was a time when I personally managed all my properties, these days I have just 3 that I manage myself, I have an excellent independent agent that I have now been using for the past 20 yrs, I've not had a bad tenant from them in all that time, for me they are well worth their 10% fee, all tenants are free to contact me directly by phone, text or email, and most do if there is a problem.
Thank you Andrew Townsend - A good letting agent is worth every penny and works hard for every penny. But too often they are disparaged and a LL wants to cut the fee to the minimum. A good LA makes the LL life so much better and hassle free because they deal with everything - therefore the LL thinks that they shouldn't have to pay for the service because it's easy! If its easy, its because the LA is doing a good job and should be paid fairly for it.
What sort of detailed information are they looking for? I'm struggling to imagine what it might be.
Shhhhhhh Alison, didn't you know it's a secret as to what agents are required to put on their web sites?
Having spent many years as an agent the comments made here are very valid. In all the years I traded (over 30 years) I had 3 bad tenants. I consider one a decade was good going as I picked up far mores badly let and managed properties from the likes of those agents who thought it was easy to do.
If any landlord didn't want to pay my fees I had a stock line of 'I can't offer you the service you want require or deserve'. That got rid of them and they thought I was being kind to them!
Independent experienced Lettings Agents are like gold dust.
Landlord's that know their Agents well, deal with the same competent local person are very lucky indeed to have such a personal relationship. That 'face' gets far more goodwill from a Tenant too.
Imagine trying to get hold of your Agent and getting a call centre bot...that's the way many of the big players operate.
Value you local Agent rather than try and screw him/her for every penny - you are lucky to have this level of service in today's marketplace.
Totally agree, I am very lucky with mine, we all get on well, landlord, agent and tenants
I know pens & computers are
hard work to comply with invented rules. I know physical work to maintain and up grade the Property is real work. I am not knocking Agents unless they are dictating to us how everything should be, it’s our property.
I have been using RightMove to find property and I have to say that many descriptions are lacking correct information, quite apart from the appalling grammar and spellings.
In an effort to narrow the searches, I use keywords. Looking for properties with lifts I enter LIFT as a keyword. I then discovered that some agents use the word ELEVATOR instead of lift. Maybe they have American owners but who is going to do a search for Elevators?
I also discovered that despite a property definitely having a lift, which is even mentioned within the description, the keyword search says otherwise. That is a fault of RightMove.
And then we have agents who fail to inform prospective purchasers that a property has a lift. Sometimes it is pretty obvious that a block of flats has a lift and I'll check them out. But I have to say that I have discarded probably hundreds of likely properties due to poor descriptions. Room sizes (or lack thereof) is another beef I have. Missing floor plans is another. If I am looking for a property of a certain size, this information would be enormously helpful. If only RightMove used a template which would standardise descriptions.
Sometimes I see a flat in an apartment block that looks interesting but then have no idea what ruddy floor it's on. How stupid can these agents be? So it gets discarded, again for lack of information.
I treat these 'adverts' like I would read a cv for a job. I'm not going to waste more than 10 seconds (most times it is less) on a property which isn't described properly. If only the sellers knew how many opportunities have fallen by the wayside due to the incompetence of agents (mostly) and their advertising medium.
And what's worse is when I see a property I like and ask agents for further information and they cannot be bothered to reply. How on earth do they stay in business with attitudes like that?
Rant over. :-)
You are of course spot on, it's generally the large national agents that are pretty useless as the youngsters on minimum wage that they employee cannot be bothered to do the job properly
Good agents must be supported & as for bad agents drop it like it’s hot.
Agents cannot charge the fees like before so of course tenants are thinking why are they paying more. (Wonder if they will join the dots)
All the comments and discussions re the value of how fabulous certain letting agents are is all fine and dandy and im glad for all of you that are in love with your agents . But correct me if I am wrong- I thought the original post was about wanting a certain level of information provided in advertisements??
I see one post so far addressing this and this is from a tenant (presumably) about how they view information in adverts.
I would just simply like to know what information the bodies are looking for- there appears to be no mention of it in the OP as far as I can see?
No problem scrap your digital viewing go back to how it used to be, go and view the Property and you’ll have all the information you need, instead of nosing through scores of private property, just watched TV interview with 4 candidates for London Mayor, waste of time I won’t be voting again this time putting any of them in charge of £17b it’s a disgrace just close down City Hall.
If someone could define 'Key Information', then I'm sure that all Landlords would include this information. What photos do they want? Some online letting agents limit the number of photos.
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