A “redress scheme” is a scheme which provides for complaints against members of the scheme to be investigated and determined by an independent person.

Either landlord clients or tenants can complain about an agent to a redress scheme.

The schemes have powers of redress including fines, rectifying a problem and even asking the agent to apologise.

There are currently three redress schemes that are approved by government.

The Private Rented Sector Accreditation Scheme is pleased to announce that it’s members are now entitled to a 10% discount to one of the schemes – Property Redress Scheme.

The Property Redress Scheme is a new, straightforward and easy to use consumer redress (ombudsman) scheme for Property Agents and Professionals.

The main purposes of the Property Redress Scheme are to allow Agents to comply with their legal requirement to be a member of a government authorised consumer redress scheme and to settle or resolve complaints made by consumers against our Members.

The costs of the scheme (which we think are very reasonable even before the discount) are available on their website here.

The code which you simply enter at the payment stage when joining the scheme is available on the membership page. It’s quite close to the bottom where the other member discounts are located.

We’ve known for a while now but have been waiting for the actual physical licence agreement to turn up in the post. This hasn’t happened yet but we have been categorically assured all is good and that we can announce.

The London Rental Standard (LRS) is an initiative by the Mayor of London – Boris Johnson designed to set new standards and help people renting in the private renting sector in London.

A landlord or agent needs to first become accredited through a licensed provider of the LRS such as the Private Rented Sector Accreditation Scheme (PRSAS). Then, landlords or agents with properties in Greater London can display the LRS badge to show they meet the standards.

There are many other benefits to being accredited with the PRS Accreditation Scheme such as discounted annual subscription to the Guild of Residential Landlords, regular news updates provided by the same, discounted deposit protection fees, discount buildings insurance and much more ….

The London Rental Standard product offered by the PRS Accreditation Scheme is a FREE add on for all its accredited members who have one or more properties in the Greater London area.

Accreditation is without doubt gathering momentum throughout England and Wales and sometime in 2015 it will even be law that every landlord and agent in Wales take the same training as accreditation provides currently.

Tenants looking for rented property in London are being encouraged to try and look for a London Rental Standard landlord or letting agent during their decision making process.

Accredited landlords and agents will automatically be added to the London Rental Standard product in due course but if you want to get it right now, use this link.

Subscribers to the Guild of Residential Landlords can become accredited for a discounted rate of £10.00. After which, all renewals are at a discounted rate (currently £70.00, normally £80.00). See here for more details.

Get your free copy of the landlord handbook here.

The landlord manual provides help and guidance for landlords and letting agents and our online development course for accreditation is based on the handbook.

The cost is £40.00 and it will last for 3 months. The whole content can be viewed online and there is a short test at the end which isn’t compulsory to pass (just for fun!)

Any accredited member can purchase the CPD anytime and be sure to record it with your favourite CPD recorder. We provide members with a free CPD tracker available from the membership page.

If you have any questions, please do contact us.

The section relating to agents should be read but to summarise, the main changes are:

• Currently, deposits protected with the DPS custodial scheme is an acceptable substitute for client money protection. This is being phased out and before 1 June 2015, all agents will have to have client money protection such as that provided by CM Protect.
• We are not licensed for London Rental Standard but a license has been requested. If approved, landlords wishing to display the LRS badge will have to have client money protection immediately.
• Currently at least two thirds of staff of agents must have completed the course. This is being changed to at least one active staff member per office branch of the agency must have completed the course.

There are a number of other minor additions worthy of reading in the code.

• discounted HMO licence fees,
• grants for insulation work,
• priority in setting up a new self-service system with the Council’s housing benefit section

In particular today, we wanted to tell you about a further benefit of registering with the Dorset scheme and that is Training for Professionals are providing a tenancy deposit masterclass at Bournemouth Town Hall on the 2 July 2014 from 0930 to 1630. The normal cost for attendance is £80.00 but if you are registered with the Dorset Register, attendance is completely FREE!

You will need to be quick to book the course though as places are almost all gone.

Further details about Dorset Register are available here.

Further details about the deposit masterclass (and booking) can be obtained by calling 01258 85 85 85 or visiting the TFP website.

If you have already registered before 10 April 2014 and currently doing the course, you can still use the old system or, if you haven’t started yet, you can start using the new one immediately. Both the new and old will achieve successful accreditation during this transitional period. It is worth noting that we have updated the content to current rules only on the new system so if you continue with the old you may find a few bots slightly out of date. The old was updated fairly recently so there isn’t massive difference between the two.

The link to the online course is available from the membership page.

More screenshots are available here.

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Please ensure you read and familiarise yourself with the new version.

The changes include:

• Added the complaints procedure into the criteria and code document so everything is together in one place.
• Made some minor grammatical tweaks to some clauses
• Re-affirmed the requirement to notify us if a member changes contact details
• Made some changes and additions to the complaints procedure for which see the document.

The revised version of the criteria, code and complaints is available for download here