News
October 2010
Letting Bureau endorsed as 1st ever Approved Service Providers by industry regulators NALS
The National Approved Letting Scheme (NALS), has announced its brand new designated ‘NALS Approved Service Provider’ offering which makes available recognition to firms who provide back office services to letting firms. This enables them to comply with NALS strict criteria in client accounting and save on costs in being part of the scheme. The Letting Bureau is the first to achieve designated status.
Caroline Pickering, Chair of NALS said, “We are delighted to be able to offer back-office service providers the opportunity to apply to gain this designation. This growing industry is a vital part of the lettings market and we look forward to helping to support these firms moving forward and enable their clients to become NALS licensed.”
“We have established that a number of firms now use or are considering outsourcing elements of the operation of their business to a back office service provider. The services this type of provider might offer through their software includes client accounting and/or deposit protection, referencing or full property management. The issue has been in the past however that if a lettings firm outsourced elements of the service they offer to landlords and tenants, the firm could not gain recognition by NALS.
“We recognise that the industry is changing and the way in which agents choose to operate is changing as new technology is developed. With the introduction by NALS of a new designation “NALS Approved Service Provider” specifically focused on those firms providing back office services we would recognise where their services would enable lettings and management firms to meet NALS compliance criteria.”
This will potentially bring cost savings to lettings firms in NALS with no dilution of standards or our criteria. For example, instead of a firm supplying an annual accountant’s report to NALS, if the firm’s client money accounting/deposit protection was outsourced to an approved service provider vetted thoroughly by NALS the provider would fulfill the compliance requirement in this particular area rather than the agent.”
Jenny Markham (left) at Letting Bureau said, “We have seen demand for our services go from strength to strength so approaching NALS to find out if we could help our clients to gain a NALS licence and gain recognition of our services was the next step. It made good business sense for us to achieve the NALS ‘tick’ so we could promote ourselves to our customers, and confirm to them that we adhere to strict guidelines and are a reputable organisation they should want to partner with.”
