Residential property managers provide services such as health and fire safety, maintenance of the common parts, and manage the finances of the building. In leasehold blocks they may hold substantial sums of leaseholder money, such as reserve funds. Despite such important responsibilities, and associated complex legislation to navigate, residential property managers are not currently required to hold any qualifications to demonstrate competence. While many do so voluntarily, too many do not.

Meanwhile, news of poor quality and poorly managed homes continues to dominate the headlines – with stories of properties with significant damage to buildings and common parts going unrepaired. Poor management and incompetence by unqualified property managers causes detriment and harm to residential communities, placing them at risk financially, and even more seriously, in matters of building and life safety.

Introducing mandatory qualifications is an obvious first step to drive up standards of competence and protect consumers from harm.

The situation is becoming ever more urgent, not least with the implementation of the Building Safety Regime. The Property Institute is calling on the government to take the opportunity presented by the current Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill to introduce a regulatory regime for the property management sector. If Government lacks the appetite to deliver robust regulation, then at the very least it should protect consumers by mandating minimum qualification requirements and publishing a statutory code of practice for property managers. The government has already made qualifications mandatory for social housing managers in June 2023. The Property Institute now wants the government to close the gap and mirror mandatory qualifications for property managers managing blocks of flats in the private sector. All residents need to be protected from inadequate operators and bad practices – regardless of tenure.

In 2019, Lord Best published a report that set out recommendations to uphold standards for all managing agents and drive incapable and unfit agents out of the sector. The Property Institute argues that since the report, the urgency to address the situation around standards in the sector has become far more pressing and is asking the government to consider its proposal for mandatory regulations. It suggests mandatory qualifications will drive out problematic and unethical operators.

As part of its efforts to drive change and bring the matter to the attention of the decision-makers in Westminster, The Property Institute – along with other industry organisations – wrote last autumn to then Housing Minister Rachel Maclean, to call for change and is continuing to press for the same with current Housing Minister Lee Rowley.

The Property Institute is the leading professional body for the residential property management sector, representing over 6,000 property managers, and over 350 managing agent firms. It continues to call for regulation of the sector and work with government to drive forward this legislation.