Member Article

Lettings agency scoops seven awards at national ceremony

A North East agency is celebrating ‘lucky number seven’ after achieving record success at the lettings industry’s most prestigious national awards ceremony.

Bill Free Homes Ltd, based in Durham City, has scooped a total of seven accolades at The Sunday Times Lettings Agency of the Year Awards 2016.

The ceremony saw more than 500 leading letting agents from across the UK travel to the Lancaster London Hotel to celebrate the achievements of the cream of the crop in the lettings world. Award winners were chosen following a rigorous judging process by a panel of 20 industry experts.

This is the fourth year running that Bill Free Homes, which manages more than 100 student houses in Durham City, has won recognition at the London event. This year, however, the company broke its record by bringing back seven accolades to the North East – more than the past three years combined.

Bill Free Homes won Gold awards for ‘Best Property Management’ and ‘Best Lettings Agency to Work for’, and Silver awards for ‘Northern Lettings Agency of the Year: Single Office Agency’, ‘Best Customer Service’ and ‘Best Student Lettings’. Director Sean Lawless was shortlisted for ‘Best Lettings Branch Manager’, and Bill Free Homes’ sister company Elvet Estates, which opened last year, won ‘Best Newcomer’.

The agency was widely praised by the judges, whose comments included: “Bill Free Homes is a superb business that gets everything right. The team is very attentive to the needs of its student tenants and offers an enormous amount of assistance to ensure that they cope well with their first time living alone.

“Everyone at Bill Free Homes is focused on the customer experience. The use of technology is excellent and, in line with their ethos, they employed a graduate to design and build their back office platform. The rate at which they develop and implement new and exciting initiatives is breathtaking.”

The team accepted their awards from a special celebrity guest – rugby and Olympic leadership legend Sir Clive Woodward, whilst renowned journalist, author and newsreader Penny Smith acting as compere for the evening.

Director of Bill Free Homes Sean Lawless said: “This ceremony was a very special night for us and we were overwhelmed to receive seven awards – our biggest success yet at the most famous event in the industry’s calendar. We were back and forth from the stage so often that that we were starting to lose count by the end!

“As it’s such a popular, renowned event, more and more agencies enter each year, so it’s a real credit to our team that we’ve come out on top in so many categories, despite tough competition from across the UK. We’re very proud of everyone.”

These awards mark the latest in a string of recent accolades for the company, which was crowned Durham Student Letting Agent of the Year at last month’s North East Student Housing Awards (NESHA) for the second year running, and scooped four awards at The Estate Agency of the Year Awards (ESTAS) 2016 in April.

For more information about Bill Free Homes, visit www.billfreehomes.com, call 0330 330 0999 or email Peter Smith - peter@billfreehomes.com

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Bill Free Homes .