Bid to Regulate Property Factors

Wendy ALEXANDER MSP has urged members from all parties to back Labour’s proposals to give homeowners more protection by enforcing new standards on factors and property managers.

She was commenting after Thursday’s Holyrood debate. Patricia Ferguson MSP has tabled a members’ bill that would give homeowners more rights and require all factors in Scotland to be registered and accredited by an official body.

WENDY ALEXANDER MSP is supporting the legislation because of the number of complaints she has received from constituents. The proposals are supported by a range of organisations including the Property Managers Association and Renfrewshire Law Centre.

Wendy Alexander said:

“For too long factors have been a law unto themselves. There are many good factors but there are others who seem to see the job as a licence to print money and simply do not communicate with the people they are supposed to work for.

“I decided to support this legislation after receiving complaints from constituents about a whole range of issues including poor quality repairs, unnecessary work, serious overcharging and substandard service.

“These are issues that affect people in throughout Renfrewshire and I hope that MSPs from across the Chamber will put aside their differences and support Labour’s proposals to give homeowners more rights.

“The Scottish Government is currently proposing a voluntary scheme but we believe they need to go further and that legislation is required.”

Motion for debate:

S3M-5872 Patricia Ferguson: Factoring Services—That the Parliament notes that the Office of Fair Trading market study into the property management market found that the market is not working well for consumers in Scotland; welcomes the recent cross-party support for proposals to require property factors to register and to make provision for an accessible form of dispute resolution between homeowners and property factors, and further welcomes this positive progress toward the introduction of legislation to ensure better accountability of property managers for their standards and the services that they provide.