Scottish Property News

Bid to regulate property factors

A Bill that would give homeowners more protection by enforcing new standards on factors and property managers is being lodged in the ­Scottish Parliament.

Labour MSP Patricia Ferguson today formally tables legislation that would give homeowners more rights and require all factors in Scotland to be registered and accredited by an official body.

The Bill also provides a legal right to a mediation service to give a means of redress other than court action.

Ms Ferguson said: “For too long now factors have been a law unto themselves. There are many good factors but there are others who seem to see the job as a licence to print money and simply do not communicate with the people they are supposed to work for.”

Factors take responsibility for ­common areas of tenement-style buildings such as roofs, stairways and close lighting, as well as landscaped areas in private housing estates, in return for an annual management fee. They also collect the property owners’ share of other bills.

Investigations by The Herald and the Evening Times, our sister paper, have uncovered cases of people being charged inflated sums for simple jobs and others being taken to court ­during disputes.

They included £44 to change a light bulb that cost £1 to buy, a group of residents paying £864 for the cutting of a patch of grass measuring just six metres square, and an elderly widow who faced the threat of losing her home because her factor was trying to bankrupt her husband.

The firm added fees and charges plus interest for more than 15 years for an unpaid bill of £6400.

In Glasgow alone, there are about 120 factors, from small property firms to big organisations dealing with thousands of properties.

Ms Ferguson is concerned that too many see it as an easy way to make money with little effort. There is a large number of factored properties in Ms Ferguson’s Glasgow Maryhill constituency and she decided to press for tougher regulation because of the number of complaints she had received.

She said: “This experience, backed up by the large number of responses to my consultation received from all across Scotland and the findings of the Office of Fair Trading study into the Scottish factoring market, has convinced me that now is the time to take action.

Mike Dailly, principal solicitor at Govan Law Centre in Glasgow, said the time for action was overdue. He said: “We have been inundated with complaints from clients who are unhappy with their property factor. From concerns about poor quality repairs, unnecessary work, poor value for money, serious overcharging, to problems around unfair charging practices and substandard service, nothing has changed in Scotland over the last few years in this sector.”

Ms Ferguson now has a month to gather support from at least 18 MSPs of more than one party before her Bill can proceed.