It opens applications for up to 15 board members
The Property Redress Scheme (PRS) has announced a significant change to the membership of the PRS Advisory Council to further improve governance and accountability.
The PRS Advisory Council has now become the PRS Advisory Panel, and PRS is inviting applications from the entire UK property sector for up to 15 board positions.
The new approach aims to promote a genuinely authentic outlook and attitude across all areas of the property spectrum and to ensure that the PRS itself takes a balanced view in all of its policy decisions.
The areas of representation that the PRS is seeking experts from are: holiday lets, house purchasers, inventories, landlords, leaseholders, lettings professionals, property education, property sourcing, rent-to-rent, residential leasehold management professionals, sales professionals, and tenants.
Interested parties can apply themselves or nominate a third party for Advisory Panel membership. Applications close on August 31, 2022, and successful membership applications will be confirmed by mid-September.
PRS was launched in 2014 and is the UK’s largest lettings redress scheme with over 13,250 letting agency branches covered. All estate agents, lettings agents, and property managers in England and Wales must become members of such a scheme with the fine for non-participation being up to £5,000.
The government’s intention in prescribing the legislation specifying mandatory membership is to ensure that disputes between letting agents, tenants and landlords, or estate agents, buyers, and sellers, can be better resolved using such third-party oversight. The PRS deals with approximately 2,000 complaints from tenants, landlords, property buyers, and sellers each year, and, in 2021, awarded nearly £500,000 in compensation to those who had complaints upheld.
The current PRS Advisory Council was set up to advise the head of redress, Sean Hooker, and refer him to matters of consideration such as new or modified laws or forthcoming government policies as they relate to the property industry. The advisory council also scrutinises the head of redress and ensures the scheme’s impartiality.
Hooker said that their intention is to invigorate and to democratise the private rental sector through the active participation of sector experts.
“Traditionally, advisory boards are made up of individuals with big names - often justifiably so,” Hooker noted. “However, our new approach to attracting Advisory Panel members is to focus on a much broader and more diverse membership whereby we will select based on genuine knowledge, experience and likely contribution to innovating and improving property redress, regardless of public profile.”
Tim Frome, managing director of HF Resolution, the Hamilton Fraser Group entity that owns the Property Redress Scheme, said that as the property sector has become larger, more complex and diverse, it’s important for any oversight organisation to hold a mirror to itself and to adapt as the industry that it sits within does so too.
“Our proposal to attract up to 15 advisory experts from across the spectrum via a fresh and inclusive process cements the Property Redress Scheme as a truly modern and forward-thinking organisation best equipped to tackle the challenges of a changing space,” Frome added.
“It is anticipated that the Property Redress Scheme Advisory Panel will convene twice annually, once in person and once virtually. Applicants are invited to apply both as individuals or as nominees of a relevant sector organisation.”
