Member Article

Property Watchdog doesn’t bark in £750,000 scandal

An industry regulator has come in for criticism from a North East property expert after a lettings agency’s collapse left landlords owed hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Charterhouse Professional Property Services of Brentwood in Essex went into liquidation in May, leaving almost 100 creditors – many of them landlords - owed a combined £750,000. The police are currently investigating the firm.

The company – headed by Jeffery Terrance Gadsen - was registered with letting agent regulatory body ARLA. Although ARLA have now revoked Gadsen’s membership and are currently working to recover the money owed to creditors, Ajay Jagota of KIS Lettings, believes the affair leaves the regulator with questions to answer.

Ajay, whose business manages properties for almost 700 landlords from branches in North Shields, South Shields, Sunderland and Welwyn Garden City said: “Politicians and so-called experts alike have long been suggesting more regulation is the answer to every single issue facing the private rented sector. Well on this occasion regulation emphatically did not work.

“ARLA must come clean about what they knew and when, how any audits of this firm missed it’s surely apparent shortcomings and weaknesses– which cannot have emerged overnight - and launch an immediate investigation into how this was allowed to happen.

“Why did their checks and balances failed so miserably on this occasion? Why were none of their much-vaunted sanctions and disciplinary measures ever imposed on this individual apart from the revoking of his membership a month after his business collapsed – a step I do not believe will have brought much comfort or consolation to the landlords who put their trust in an ARLA-regulated firm which has left them thousands of pounds out of pocket.

“ARLA are clearly doing valuable work attempting to get Charterhouse’s creditors their money back and I am completely supportive of any attempts to maintain and improve professional standards and build public trust in the rental sector but frankly, what use is a watchdog which won’t bark as landlords are left £750,000 out of pocket?”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ajay Jagota .