LETTING AGENTS – ARE YOU READY FOR CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT 2015 27 MAY DEADLINE?

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The Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires that from 27 May 2015 all letting agents must publicise:

  1. details of the agent’s relevant fees
  2. details of any redress scheme to which the agent may belong and
  3. a statement of whether the agent is a member of a client money protection scheme.

The list of fees and redress scheme information must be displayed.:

  1. in a place where it is likely to be seen by people visiting any premises where the agent deals with actual or potential clients on a face to face basis, so a window may possibly be the best place
  2. on the agent’s website, assuming that the business has a website

The list of fees must be:

  1. sufficiently clear so that anyone who is liable to pay it can easily understand the service or cost that is covered by the fee or the purpose for which it is imposed (as the case may be),
  2. if the fee is payable by the tenants the listing must indicate whether the fee relates to each dwelling-house or each tenant under a tenancy of the dwelling-house, and
  3. the total fee payable inclusive of any applicable tax or, where the amount of a fee cannot reasonably be determined in advance, a description of how that fee is calculated.

The fees are those fees, charges or penalties (however expressed) payable to the agent by a landlord or tenant:

  1. in respect of letting agency work carried on by the agent,
  2. in respect of property management work carried on by the agent, or
  3. otherwise in connection with:
  4. an assured tenancy of a dwelling-house, or
  5. a dwelling-house that is, has been or is proposed to be let under an assured tenancy.

Fees do not include:

  1. the rent payable to a landlord under a tenancy,
  2. any fees, charges or penalties which the letting agent receives from a landlord under a tenancy on behalf of another person,
  3. a tenancy deposit, or
  4. any fees, charges or penalties specified in regulations made by the appropriate national authority.

Enforcement

Enforcement is given to local authority weights and measures authority in England and Wales to enforce the this requirement in its area but please note that if a letting agent breaches the duty to publish a list of fees etc on its website then that breach is taken to have occurred in each area of a local weights and measures authority in England and Wales in which a dwelling-house to which the fees relate is located.  However a local weights and measures authority in England and Wales may impose a penalty in respect of a breach which occurs outside its area and in the area of a local weights and measures authority in Wales only if it has obtained the consent of that authority.

Penalties

The maximum financial penalty imposed under this section is £5,000although local authorities can impose a lower penalty as they feel appropriate.

Agents do have a right of appeal against any penalties imposed.

27 May is not far off now and members who are agents are urged to prepare all of the necessary documentation and arrange for its display in a prominent position.