PDE Column, 5th October 2009 – Bad Factors, Student Support

Bad Factors – Time to Act

I have lost count of the number of times I have been approached about bad factors recently. A typical case from my mailbag concerns residents of Caledonia Court who are unhappy with their factor who demands a management fee – amounting to over £9000 for the property. And when problems arise readily resorts to lawyers’ letters.

Many people ask me what they can do if they feel they are getting a raw deal from a factor. The good news is that you can change your factor. The Title Conditions (Scotland) Act 2003 and the Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004, brought in by the last Scottish Labour Government gave owners a legal right to dismiss an existing factor and appoint a new one. 

However, often owners simply want to take issue with a particular aspect of a factor’s work (e.g. the size of the bill for maintenance carried out, maintenance work not done to a satisfactory standard etc).

If you are not happy with your factor, you should first make a complaint using your factor’s complaints process. Any factor who is a member of the Property Managers Association Scotland http://www.pmas.org.uk/ should have a formal complaints process in place. If you are not satisfied with the outcome of that complaint, you can then complain to the Property Managers Association.

 If you are still unhappy you can seek advice from a solicitor or a local trading standards office.  Local trading standards offices do have powers under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999 to bring proceedings against a property factor for unfair practices in the sheriff court.  The Renfrewshire office can be contacted at tradingstandards@renfrewshire.gov.uk or phone on 0141 840 3184. The Office of Fair Trading also has such powers.

But all of this is a bit cumbersome! I believe it should be easier for owners to take action against a bad factor. So I have been asking questions in the Parliament. I am trying to get the Scottish Government to deal with factoring in the new Housing Bill that will come before Parliament later this year.

Unfortunately Nicola Sturgeon, the minister in charge, wants to stick to a voluntary scheme for regulating factors. But the most disreputable factors will not participate in a voluntary scheme. By sticking to a new voluntary scheme, for at least 2 years it means there will be no new legislation on tackling bad factors in this Parliament.

But I believe we need to improve the law now. So I am supporting a backbench bill by Patricia Ferguson to improve the regulation of factors.  A backbench Bill cannot achieve everything but it is a start.

Meanwhile, if you really want to know more, further details about factors can be found in the following Parliamentary briefing on “Common Property and open spaces: Management, repair and maintenance:”
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/research/briefings-08/SB08-68.pdf
And the Govan Law Centre website has sample of letters to factors you can download to help sort the problems out.

Student Support

Many readers will know students who have recently gone back to University. Most take on part-time jobs whilst they are studying.

For pupils staying on at school for 5th and 6th year the SNP have cut back funding for the Educational Maintenance Allowance which helps pupils from cash-tight families with up to £30 a week. This supported a level playing field between staying on at school and leaving school and signing on.
If the SNP can afford 14 teams of civil servants planning for independence they can afford to continue to help kids stay on at school.

But the real hardship often kicks in at university. The fairest way forward would be to guarantee a £7000 minimum income for the poorest students – through bursaries and loans. Unless this happens our poorest students risk always being disadvantaged in their studies, by taking on too many jobs.

Labour is calling for an independent review of university funding. Unless action is taken to address these issues, I fear Scottish universities and Scottish students are in danger of falling behind.