We are focused on working together to help and guide sourcing agents to operate legally. We believe that this will raise the levels of professionalism across our sector and at the same time make it a much safer place for investors to work in.
We are very proud to be announcing our partnership with the PRS, as it helps to reconfirm our mission of working towards a safer and much more professional sourcing sector.
Working in partnership with the PRS means we can share valuable insights into challenging issues and focus on areas of improvement, so we can update our guidance and training support not only to our Members but the industry as a whole.
Who Are The PRS?
Designed especially for any property professionals, including property sourcing agents, deal packagers and deal sourcers, the PRS are a consumer redress scheme authorised by the Government since 2014. They provide an impartial service that considers consumer complaints about a variety of property related issues.
All property agents who carry out estate, lettings and property management work have a legal obligation to belong to a redress scheme. All NAPSA Members are checked and verified before going live on our site that they have a live membership of one of the two approved property redress schemes.
If at any point a consumer feels that a members service has fallen short of what was expected, they may be able to raise a compliant.
“At the PRS we are pleased to announce our partnership with NAPSA, this partnership is another cog in the wheel towards a professional and trusted property sourcing sector.
The training, guidance and standards set out by both organisations will offer reassurance, encourage confidence in the industry and provide accountability to customers and authorities that this is a safe and compliant space in which to operate.”
Sean Hooker, Head of Redress, the PRS
Why is this Partnership Important for Property Sourcing?
By working together, we will be able to gain valuable insights and information around challenging areas, such as the core topics for complaints made against sourcing agents, allowing us to act quickly to assess what could be done to prevent these types of complaints, give access to members on critical information and updates, as well as ensuring that training partners have the necessary information to amend training programmes where applicable.
Equally as important, we can begin to get a much better understanding of the size of our sector – such as the number of registered sourcing agents in the UK (by using data from both redress schemes), as well as mentioned earlier, any common areas of complaint.
We will be hosting a range of webinars with the PRS and create specific Hub content created by the redress scheme, which will be available to our NAPSA Members for preview.
Of course we will give access to any general or critical guidance updates relevant to our sector via our social channels, emails and website for all property professionals and investors to access.
“It is imperative that as the national association for the sourcing and deal packaging sector we have partnerships with other supervisory and regulatory bodies to ensure that our agents are always at the forefront of setting the highest standards and professionalism.
By working in this way we also help to ensure that our sector provides a much safer environment for property investors when choosing to use the services of a sourcing agent.”
Tina Walsh (CEO) NAPSA
Goals for the Future
To build a close, working relationship that shares relevant information and learnings, through regular webinar, video and Hub content to keep our members at the forefront of the sourcing sector.
To reduce the number of illegally operating sourcing agents and the number of complaints made by property investors as well as significantly improve the generally held negative view of the sourcing industry within the property investment sector.
Like to know more about The Property Redress Scheme? Click here to find out what they do.
Sourcing Agents & Deal Sourcers: If you’d like to Register with the PRS, you can start the process here.
Investors: Want to make a complaint about a Property Sourcing Agent registered with the PRS? Start the process here.
