4 MARCH 2010
IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LABOUR BID TO REGULATE PROPERTY FACTORS

Dumfries Labour MSP Elaine Murray has urged members from all parties to back Labour's proposals to give homeowners more protection by enforcing new standards on factors and property managers.

She was commenting after Thursday's Holyrood debate. Labour's Patricia Ferguson has tabled a members’ bill that would give homeowners more rights and require all factors in Scotland to be registered and accredited by an official body.

Elaine Murray MSP is supporting the legislation because of the number of complaints she has received from constituents. The proposals are supported by a range of organisations including the Property Managers Association and Govan Law Centre.

Elaine Murray MSP said: “An efficient and fair factoring service is to be welcomed as it maintains properties in good condition.

But for too long 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.

“These are issues that affect people throughout Dumfries and I hope that MSPs from across the Chamber will put aside their differences and support Labour’s proposals to give homeowners more rights.

"The Scottish Government is currently proposing a voluntary scheme but we believe they need to go further and that legislation is required."

Russell Brown MP, who has acted on behalf of residents of Barnhill in Dumfries, Dalbeattie and Stranraer unhappy at the role of property factors in the housing developments where they live, said, “I’ve dealt with numerous cases in different parts of the region involving homeowners in housing developments, where factors have been appointed to maintain grounds and buildings. On some occasions homeowners haven’t been made properly aware of what factors will do, and what they expect in return, before they bought their home. This had led to bills turning up on residents’ doormats out of the blue with little explanation of what they were for.

“The problem is that at present in too many circumstances homeowners have little control over the role factors play in housing developments, and the factors have little accountability to the residents who pay them. That needs to change, and that’s why it’s important that Patricia Ferguson’s Bill gets the backing of the Scottish Parliament.”

ENDS

CONTACT – ANDREW MACKENZIE 07769206856

NOTES TO EDITOR

Scottish Labour motion for debate:

S3M-5872 Patricia Ferguson: Factoring Services—That the Parliament notes that the Office of Fair Trading market study into the property management market found that the market is not working well for consumers in Scotland; welcomes the recent cross-party support for proposals to require property factors to register and to make provision for an accessible form of dispute resolution between homeowners and property factors, and further welcomes this positive progress toward the introduction of legislation to ensure better accountability of property managers for their standards and the services that they provide.