Sweeping reforms to protect leaseholders from the small minority of rogue agents and create a fairer property management system has been announced by a government minister. Communities secretary Sajid Javid made the announcement at a keynote speech at the Association of Residential Managing Agents’ (ARMA) annual conference. He said that the government was seeking views on whether a regulatory overhaul was needed to improve professionalism in the sector and to protect consumers from unfair costs and practices. Javid, who singled out ARMA members as the “good guys”, claimed that in the “age of the empowered consumer” property management was “living in the past”. He added: “Our proposed changes to regulate the industry will give landlords, renters and leaseholders the confidence they need to know that their agents must comply with the rules.” ARMA’s chief executive, Dr Nigel Glen, said: “We are delighted that the communities secretary chose the ARMA Conference to announce this welcome shift in policy. We have long campaigned for the sector to be regulated and will do all we can to assist the Government in delivering a regulatory regime across the industry.” In the absence of statutory legislation, ARMA introduced the ‘ARMA-Q Standards’ self-regulatory regime for its members in 2015. These rules set high standards for residential leasehold block management and members are required to meet these standards.
