CPS Homes

Client Money Protection remains as essential as ever

Landlords and tenants have been served with a stark reminder after a Canterbury agent without Client Money Protection collapsed owing £400,000 to its clients.

Joseph Newman Letting and Estate Agents owe a total of £413,321 to 70 landlords and 249 tenants. The company – now in voluntary liquidation since closing down – claimed to be one of the largest and longest-serving agents in the area, but did not belong to any of the membership bodies or schemes.

The case raises fresh concerns over the lack of regulation of the property industry. Despite trading for several years, the agent in question were not members of the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) or The Property Ombudsman (TPO), meaning there was no requirement imposed on them to have a Client Money Protection policy in place. As a result, their landlords and tenants have no choice but to pursue their losses via the courts, when, had there been a policy in place, it would have been as straight forward as making a compensatory claim against it.

In a statement reported by The Canterbury Times under the headline ‘Hundreds affected by letting agent’s failure’, the liquidators said: “The main cause for concern is that the deposits received by the company from tenants were not held with the Deposit Protection Scheme. It appears that these deposits were utilised to fund the company’s loss-making trading, and the liquidators will be undertaking investigations into this matter.”

CPS Homes are proud members of ARLA and TPO, as well as Landlord Accreditation Wales, meaning our landlords and tenants can be safe in the knowledge that their funds are protected via our Client Money Protection policy.

03 May 2012

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