{"id":1011,"date":"2013-06-26T00:00:44","date_gmt":"2013-06-25T23:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/news\/?p=1011"},"modified":"2022-12-09T08:59:33","modified_gmt":"2022-12-09T08:59:33","slug":"professional-standards-how-efficient-is-your-letting-agent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/news\/property-advice\/professional-standards-how-efficient-is-your-letting-agent\/","title":{"rendered":"Professional Standards \u2013 How efficient is your Letting Agent?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s been a lot of discussion recently about the need for professional standards in the lettings industry and in fact, RICS, The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, recently called for the compulsory regulation of lettings agents. This move is, of course, long overdue and at the moment the only way for landlords and tenants to protect themselves is to make sure they use an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/membership\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ARLA member letting agent<\/a>.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<h2>Efficiency Enhancements for Landlords and Tenants<\/h2>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1014\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1014\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Just-one-section-of-my-filing-cabinet...jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-1014\" style=\"margin-bottom: 2px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Just-one-section-of-my-filing-cabinet..-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Just-one-section-of-my-filing-cabinet..\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1014\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Just one section of my filing cabinet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As a founder member of ARLA, we take professional standards very seriously. Whether you\u2019re a landlord or a tenant, life is much simpler if your letting agent responds to your queries and requests quickly and efficiently. That\u2019s why we are introducing new document management software to handle the high volumes of data that we store on behalf of landlords and tenants.<\/p>\n<p>The software has been custom designed for us and is integrated into our current <a href=\"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/services\/property-management\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">property management<\/a> system so clients will find we can now respond even more quickly to requests for information. We now have a single, collective storage point for all correspondence and can search easily to find information relating to anything from maintenance and repair issues to payments from tenants.<\/p>\n<h2>Secure Access to Information \u2013 from our International Offices<\/h2>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1013\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1013\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/thousands-of-files-now-in-my-hand.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-1013\" src=\"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/thousands-of-files-now-in-my-hand-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Thousands of files now in my hand!\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1013\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Thousands of files now in my hand!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Information can be accessed securely from all our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/contact\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">10 London offices<\/a>, including our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/international\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">international offices<\/a> in Dubai, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore, so overseas clients will notice that we can respond even more quickly. Landlords and tenants can also access information using their own secure, log-in area. It\u2019s all about making life easier and believe our landlords and tenants will really value this service.<\/p>\n<p>On a more general note concerning professional standards, consumer group Which? recently discovered that two thirds of tenants and nearly half of landlords they spoke to didn\u2019t know whether if their letting agent belonged to a professional body. It\u2019s really simple to find out by going to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arla.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www.arla.co.uk<\/a> and clicking on their Letting Agent Directory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s been a lot of discussion recently about the need for professional standards in the lettings industry and in fact, RICS, The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, recently called for the compulsory regulation of lettings agents. This move is, of course, long overdue and at the moment the only way for landlords and tenants to &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/news\/property-advice\/professional-standards-how-efficient-is-your-letting-agent\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Professional Standards \u2013 How efficient is your Letting Agent?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[66,67],"class_list":["post-1011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-property-advice","tag-arla","tag-regulation-of-lettings-agents"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1011"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14933,"href":"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions\/14933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benhams.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}