Letting agents still unaware of Section 21 changes

The Fixflo Report 2016, which surveyed over 300 letting agents, found that 1 in 10 are still not sure what is required to provide an 'adequate response' to a tenant's request for repairs.

Legislative changes introduced as part of the Deregulation Act last Autumn require landlords or their agents to provide several prescribed documents at the start of a tenancy as well as statutorily defined responses to repairs requests.

If these processes are not carried out properly, then it could impact on a landlord's ability to regain possession of their property.

Fixflo found that 8% of the letting agents it surveyed were completely unaware of the changes to the Section 21 evictions process.

Fixflo's third annual report on the rental sector analysed data from over 250,000 repairs lodged through its system over the past year.

The number of maintenance issues reported by tenants out of hours increased from 33% in 2015 to 40% this year.

Other findings include:

- The busiest time for repairs to be reported is at 10am
- Most repairs are reported on Mondays
- Polish is most common foreign language repairs are reported in
- The average rental property requires over three repairs per year
- It takes an average of 94 minutes of staff time to manage a repair
- 93% of repairs are completed within a week

“The demands on property management continue to increase with the legislation that has come through the door over the past 12 months," says Rajeev Nayyar, Fixflo's managing director.

"With 40% of maintenance issues being reported outside of office hours by an increasingly diverse tenant base, property managers really are the unsung heroes of the industry.”

Don't leave yourself exposed to non compliance, call the Heywoods Lettings Team on 01782 617343 for a no obligation discussion.