Letting Agent calls for ten-year guarantees on 'rubbish' boilers

Anthony Kerrigan, of Kerrigans letting agency in Doncaster, has appealed for support as he attempts to lobby the government to make boiler manufacturers provide ten-year guarantees. He claims that the boilers currently being provided are 'rubbish'.

Kerrigan claims that a legislated decade-long warranty would “would make manufacturers think twice about selling unreliable rubbish. We are all being ripped off.”

The issue springs from switch in recent years from old-fashioned back boilers to supposedly more modern combi and condensing devices. Kerrigan talks of advising clients in good faith to adopt these more up-to-date models, only to find this backfiring in the long term, as although the back boilers may have expected more regular maintenance, the maintenance itself was low-cost and predictable. His claim now is that modern boilers, often coming with a warranty of just one or two years, have been deliberately constructed with a minimal lifespan. He says that agents are only now realising that these modern makes are “unreliable and too expensive to fix.”

He went on to outline the specific costs: “The average repair cost of an old back boiler was £30, which was normally a call-out charge and a replacement thermo-couple, approximately once every five years if the boiler was serviced. The boiler pretty well lasted forever, because there is nothing in them except a heat exchanger.

“The average repair cost of a new boiler is £250 for a new printed circuit board approximately every three years. The plumbers boast that a modern boiler has a life expectancy of eight years, but I think it is closer to six.”

There is widespread agreement with Kerrigan's complaints regarding unreliable equipment, although less consensus concerning his appeal for tighter legislation. Some voices in the letting community feel that the answer does not lie with the government, but with consumer power: if agents help to spread the word among their peers regarding which boiler brands are reliable and which really are rubbish, then it will be easier for everybody to avoid astronomical maintenance costs.

We at LettingWeb believe this to be a serious issue; boiler failure is one of the most frustrating and annoying aspects for both Letting Agents and Tenants. It affects Tenant trust in their Letting Agent and of course the costs incurred by the Letting Agents to ensure repairs are made swiftly are substantial.

As it appears that boiler failure instances are becoming more common, the added expenditure to Letting Agents can have a knock on effect to letting costs in general which affects the entire market.

SAFEagent Not an ARLA competitor

John Midgley chairman of SAFEagent, has responded to recent comments by ARLA president Tim Hyatt – reported here on Lettingweb – in which Hyatt claimed that ARLA's refusal to publically endorse the SAFEagent scheme came down to the presence of 'one of our competitors,' NALS, in an administrative role on the new scheme.

“SAFEagent is not about allegiance to any of the existing bodies,” Midgley has claimed, in a lengthy response to the interview with Hyatt run by Letting Agent Today.

His response comes as SAFEagent launch their 'SAFEagent awareness week', in which they encourage consumers to be aware of the assurances which their sticker in a letting agent's window brings with it. The highlights of the week are to include a reception in the House of Commons today.

Midgley has emphasised that SAFEagent's administration will not be changing: “We have no plans to remove NALS. Our view is that it is irrelevant who administers the scheme.”

More significantly, though, he has made it clear that he does not see any conflict of interest between SAFEagent and ARLA, noting that most of the 2,000 offices which currently belong to SAFEagent are ARLA and NALS members.

“The suggestion that we change the way we are administered could prove very expensive, but would also have the risk that we become just another trade body. That is not our aim,” he said.

“SAFEagent is not about allegiance to any of the existing bodies. We are an independent body and here to inform members of the public.”

SAFEagent's remit, he explained, was to provide an easy-to-understand scheme to show members of the public which agents they could trust. Apart from ARLA's caution, support for the scheme has been widespread, with many commenters praising its simplicity and apparent lack of self-interest. The recent case of the Canterbury letting agent – Full story from LettingWeb here – who collapsed owing £413,000 to tenants and landlords highlights the need for public awareness of trustworthy agents.

Mr Midgley also expressed hope that the SAFEagent scheme would expand rapidly, aiming for 5,000 members in a year's time.

Backers of SAFEagent include the government, NUS and Shelter, as well as Citizens' Advice and the RLA.