All Agents & Landlords To Be Licensed?
ARLA‘s president Robert Jordan said at their annual conference that licensing of all lettings agents would be the solution to bad practice in the rental market. Especially now that the flat house sales will encourage insufficiently qualified agents to go into lettings as a survival mechanism:
“This is a very great worry, because if agents are not already involved and qualified they could be a risk to the market. Unqualified agents, together with amateur landlords, are responsible for the majority of problems in the private rented sector. The missing link is that government should bite the bullet and license all lettings agents and landlords.”
Via PR Newswire Foto from the conference brochure (pdf)
This would be a very interesting move it it actually happens. I think that there can be too much emphasis on ensuring tenants are screened and referenced and regulated that it may be a good idea to implement some kind of landlord licence or regulation. Letting is a two way street and it should be about making the tenants as well as the landlords equally protected.