TDS tells agents to try and settle their own disputes
News Category: Industry News
Published: 09-Aug-2010
The Tenancy Deposit Scheme has apologised to its agents over its failure to communicate the enormous price hikes in this year’s subscriptions.
Sending out invoices to cover the second half of the financial year, new chairman Martin Partington and company secretary Malcolm Lindo refer to the furore in their accompanying letter.
They say: “This has been a challenging year for TDS. This was not helped by how we initially informed you about the changes to the way we set our subscriptions.”
In the jointly signed letter, the pair give some assurances that the scheme will not fail financially – and ask members to resolve their own disputes if at all possible.
They say that 95% of members renewed their subscriptions in April, so that the TDS has “taken the first step towards a sound financial position”.
However, the 95% of members refers to each member firm and not to the number of offices. The letter does not specifically allude to the departure of its two biggest member firms, Countrywide and LSL, among the 5% who left the TDS and who are now using rival scheme Mydeposits.
Partington and Lindo say the TDS should “finish the year with a healthy balance sheet”.
Their letter also sets out sliding levels of discounts, applied depending on how much – or how little – agents use the scheme for its disputes arbitration service. Agents with the most disputes have to pay the top rate, whilst those with no disputes earn a 60% discount.
It adds: “Scheme members are expected to try to resolve disputes without the need for adjudication where possible.”
The letter also says that it is often the TDS that has to pick up the pieces.
It says: “Despite members being required to have ring-fenced client money accounts, we have increasingly found that we have had to rely on our own resources, or our insurance policy, to enable us to return deposits to the parties concerned. Both of these increase our direct costs or insurance premiums.”
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