The SAFEagent Awareness Week is now in its third year and there are currently lots of regional and national initiatives in place to try and build awareness amongst landlords of the benefits of choosing the right letting agent.
Financial Protection is Important
The SAFEagent scheme is trying to encourage landlords to pick a letting agent that subscribes to a Client Money Protection (CMP) scheme. The importance of this cannot be underestimated. Many letting agents don’t offer any form of financial protection to their customers, so if their business fails or they do a moonlight flit one night, you stand to lose a considerable amount of money.
According to John Midgley of the SAFEagent steering group, “SAFEagent Awareness Week is the ideal opportunity to remind landlords and tenants of the importance of identifying agents who offer financial protection and the campaign has made giant strides in doing so since its launch in 2011.”
Look for the SAFEagent Logo
Despite the fact that letting agents now have to belong to an ombudsman scheme, which gives landlords some redress when things go wrong, their money is still at risk. The SAGEagent scheme hopes to increase landlord awareness about the benefits of working with a letting agent who offers financial protection via a CMP scheme. There are around 3,000 letting agents nationwide who are signed up to CMP schemes and who therefore carry the SAFEagent logo and mark on their marketing materials, so look out for this before you sign on the dotted line.
