Redress Schemes for Lettings Agency Work and Property Management Work (Approval and Designation of Schemes) (England) Order 2013

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, we owe a lot to the two noble Baronesses who have already spoken, because without them we probably would not be here.

We welcome this order and look forward to rapid progress in future, we hope. It will give landlords, tenants and leaseholders an ombudsman to whom they can take their complaints about a letting or managing agent. However, we have a number of queries, and I will raise seven of them.

First, I still do not understand why the Government are reinventing the wheel. There are already two established, OFT-approved schemes that deal with letting and managing agents. Indeed, 60% of letting agents and all the managing agents that belong to ARMA are already members of one of those schemes. However, this order requires that the existing schemes must be reapproved, on slightly different criteria from those upon which they are already approved, and allows a plethora of others to apply, which will be confusing and not in the interests of consumers. I have never believed that there should be more than one ombudsman per industry. I lost that argument with my Government, but there should not be more than two per industry. Perhaps I can argue that. The idea of there being four, eight or 15 per industry will only add to the confusion and costs—and of course, it is not the consumer but the provider who will choose which to go to.

This goes against the feedback the Government had on this, and the Cabinet Office’s guidelines on Ombudsmen. Paragraph 9 of Ombudsman Schemes—Guidance for Departments, which was published in 2010, states:

“It is important to maintain a proper balance between the development of new Ombudsman schemes … and extending the remit of existing schemes where that is … possible. In choosing the best option, Departments will therefore need to … avoid multiple redress schemes within individual industry sectors, which may confuse consumers … by utilising existing Ombudsman schemes (even existing voluntary ones), or by introducing single new schemes”.

The latter is not the case here. There is the Cabinet Office saying, basically, that we should use existing schemes or extend them. The guidance goes on:

“Before creating a new Ombudsman scheme, you”—

this is addressed to departments—

“should consider the role and remit of existing schemes and decide whether a new scheme is necessary. It may … be more appropriate, and more cost effective, to extend the remit of an existing scheme”.

Why this part of the Government does not listen to that part of the Government, I do not know. Does the Minister expect more than the two existing schemes to be approved?

We know from the paperwork that a second order is envisaged that will make it mandatory for agents to be a member of a redress scheme once the department is satisfied that a sufficient—its word—number of approved schemes are operating. Will the Minister tell us what number is sufficient?

My second question is about the independence of the oversight body, or the board, in the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham. The draft conditions of approval, which are not in front of us today but are related to this, suggest that the oversight board should have a member,

“from an organisation representing consumers”.

I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment behind that, but the whole idea of a corporate board is that the individuals on it do not represent the organisations from which they come in but are part of a corporate entity. I hope that the department will consider a slightly different wording—perhaps, “with experience of representing consumers”—to ensure that the corporate identity of the oversight board is not put at risk.

My third question is about enforcement. That is the oddest part of the instrument. The Minister clarified that slightly just now. She will recall that the Government rejected my original amendment, which would have extended the Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Act 2007 to letting and managing agents. That included an enforcement mechanism; the OFT could come in if orders for redress were not followed. As the Minister said in her introduction, schemes will have to make provision for enforcement of any requirement to provide redress, which may include expulsion from the scheme.

We need to be clear what happens if a letting or managing agent is expelled. Will they simply move over to one of the other redress schemes, and will that scheme then have to accept them? If not, can I be clear that they would have to cease trading? Obviously, we want to get rid of people who, having been found to provide redress, do not. I am in favour of that, but we need the Minister to clarify that that would happen. This morning, in the Commons Delegated Legislation Committee, the suggestion was made that a redress scheme could expel a member and that it would therefore cease trading. We need to be absolutely sure that there is the legal power to do that. Perhaps the noble Baroness can confirm that.

Related to that, the Government will obviously need to have an appropriate sanction for agents who refuse to sign up to a redress scheme, and it must be strong enough to be a deterrent. It probably has to mean that they cannot continue to trade. Otherwise, it would always be in their interests not to join an ombudsman scheme. Perhaps we could have clarification on that.

Fourthly, there is the really important issue of client money protection, which is a major cause of consumer detriment. There is a recent case, different from the one that has been mentioned, of a letting agent that went bust in Hastings and lost all its clients’ deposits. It cost landlords and tenants an enormous amount of money. At the moment, there is nothing to ensure that that does not happen again.

Client money protection is the only way to ensure that deposits, forward rents, payments for repairs, and so on, are kept safe. The Government’s words on this are a bit unclear. I think that it should be a condition of belonging to a redress scheme that there is client money protection, but the draft conditions that were published earlier this month state that in making a judgment, the ombudsman scheme would have to take account of whether the letting or management agents were:

“Treating clients’ money in an appropriate manner”.

That is nonsense. What is an “appropriate manner” unless it means what we mean by client money protection—in a separate bank account with separate bank signatories, and, perhaps, insurance? Does “appropriate” mean proper client money protection?

My fifth question is: what are the Government’s plans for ensuring that the other 40% of letting agents—I am less sure of the other figures—are signed up to a redress system, and what will be the penalty if they do not join? We hope that it will be that they have to cease to trade. But who will be responsible for that compliance? Who will go around identifying letting or managing agents who are not members of a scheme? I hope that consumers will not be expected to do it, and that plans are in place to deal with that.

The Government seem to want ombudsmen to run a sort of two-tier scheme. They are very keen for agents to join, but they say they should be able to do so without signing up to a code of practice. So they envisage a two-tier scheme where agents can choose whether or not to adhere to a code of conduct or practice, which seems absurd. The very least we can do is to say that any scheme must make it clear that when an ombudsman comes to a judgment it will be not—in the woolly phrase of the moment—on generally accepted principles of best practice, but according to a code. I assume the Government share our concern to raise standards, but if we are not going to enforce a code by taking ombudsmen’s judgments in line with it, we cannot do that. I do not see how the requirements for transparency proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, are going to be enforced if there is no code that requires transparency and against which the ombudsman can take decisions.

My sixth question is: what are the Government going to do to inform consumers about their rights to redress? There were comments about making information from the scheme available to other schemes, and to anyone who regulates letting agency work, despite the Government’s refusal to set up a regulator for letting agencies, as I had wanted—but never mind. However, there does not seem to be a requirement for the list to be made available to the public, although surely it is the public who need to know which redress scheme their agent belongs to.

My last question is: when will this come into force? We heard rumours that it might not be before October, despite being expected it by April this year, but we were reassured at an early morning hearing in the Commons by the Minister there, who suggested that the target was still April. For the sake of this Committee, can the Minister confirm that that is the date that she and her colleagues are working towards?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I am grateful to all the noble Baronesses who have spoken in the debate this afternoon.

Many issues have been raised, and, while I will do my best to respond to most of them, I will say straightaway that there may be some which I will have to follow up in writing. That should not delay us. As noble Lords know, we are at the start of a three-stage process, and I would expect to be able to answer some of the points raised today when we get to the next set of regulations. What we have in front of us is an order which sets out the criteria and process for approving schemes. The next stage is for schemes to come forward, and the third and final stage is to lay an order which would bring into force the legal requirement for agents to belong to a scheme. So, if I follow up anything in writing, it will be because we are in an ongoing process.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, questioned whether we were reinventing the wheel, and why we were proceeding as we are when two schemes already exist. I remind her that we know that those schemes exist, but we hope that they will come forward to seek approval and to register. We certainly hope that happens.

As to whether there is a risk of too many schemes coming into force—a point raised by my noble friends Lady Gardner and Lady Hanham—as I said in moving the regulations, Article 6 makes it clear that the Secretary of State should have regard to the number of schemes that are, or are likely to become, approved schemes or government-administered redress schemes when deciding whether it is in the best interests of complainants and members to approve a scheme. This would require the Secretary of State to look at any scheme brought forward—other than the two I have just mentioned—but the power is there for the Secretary of State to conclude that there are adequate schemes already in place and that there might be a detrimental effect if more schemes were approved. We have considered and taken account of this issue in producing this order.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, asked about enforcement and what happens if an agent is expelled or refuses to join. Enforcement will be detailed in a second set of regulations. On the issue of the conditions for membership of the schemes, as is made clear in the order, these will include whether someone can join a scheme after being expelled from another scheme. We would examine this issue where a scheme is brought forward to the Secretary of State for approval.

As to the issues of safe agents and money protection, I share the noble Baroness’s concerns about ensuring that client money is protected. Certainly we would encourage the use of client money protection arrangements and so-called safe agents. As she knows, we did not seek to introduce this as part of the order but certainly we would be supportive of schemes that referred to this in their terms.

My noble friend Lady Hanham raised additional points. She highlighted that there was confusion and inconsistency between the words “consumers” and “clients” in the language used in the order. It is fair point. I shall consider it and see what it is possible for us to do in that area. It is a legitimate point to raise.

My noble friend Lady Gardner covered a wide range of issues. I am sorry that she feels that too much is unclear in the order. As I have already said, we are at the first stage of a process towards introducing these redress schemes. As to the direct question of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, there is no desire on our part to delay the introduction of the order. We are working to the timetable that my honourable friend mentioned in the other place this morning, namely the spring.

My noble friend Lady Gardner asked about annual reports. Each of the approved schemes will have to publish its own annual report. So if there are, say, four schemes, that will mean four individual annual reports.

My noble friend also raised some questions about the rights of leaseholders when they take a case to a leasehold valuation tribunal, when fees are incurred and when, even if the complainant has had their complaint upheld, they see those fees being recycled into their service charges. I gather that this point was raised during the debate this morning in the other place, and that my honourable friend there agreed to meet the Member who raised that concern. I will discuss it further with him and come back to my noble friend, and perhaps she and I can have a meeting once I have been able to catch up with my ministerial colleague on that matter.

My noble friends Lady Gardner and Lady Hanham raised some questions about how the ombudsman would relate to the schemes and the detailed conditions currently available on the Government’s website. Those detailed draft conditions will be finalised when the order comes into force. Only schemes that can satisfactorily prove that they meet these conditions will be approved. It is for the schemes to decide whether there should be an ombudsman. All schemes will provide an independent way of investigating complaints, which is a condition that we will apply when a scheme comes forward for approval.

My noble friend also raised a point about the conversion from leasehold to commonhold. We will debate that matter on another day because I do not believe that it is directly relevant to the regulations in front of us. However, my noble friend makes the point well and I know that she feels very strongly about it.

In conclusion, the procedures and requirements set out in this order are key to delivering the first stage in the implementation of the requirement for letting and managing agents to belong to a Government-approved redress scheme. The order will enable the Secretary of State to approve redress schemes against a clear set of criteria that will ensure that all approved schemes will provide an independent and transparent service, and that consumer complaints will be dealt with fairly and consistently. On that basis, I beg to move.