Effectively when you are carrying our property sourcing, rent to rent or active in deal packaging for clients you are effectively carrying out the role of an Estate Agent. Therefore there is a requirement to make sure you have the following in place:-
- Data Protection Licence if you are retaining individuals information.
- Join “The Property Ombudsman” TPO (in order to join you will need a minimum of £100,000 Professional Indemnity Insurance – Josh Munt at Insurance-Desk can advise and help with this area – 01296 329610
- Professional Indemnity Insurance – minimum £100,000 – we recommend £250,000 – £500,000 minimum
- Register for money laundering with HMRC
- A suitable Terms Of Business (TOB) which clearly defines your role and services you provide for your clients.
It is the latter one that we are going to concentrate on here – typically detailing what your client is paying you to do is as important as detailing what you do not cover. Your client is making a financial decision which could result in a loss of money – if this did happen you need to make sure that it can clearly be seen what your property sourcing service provided and that your client has read, understood and signed a comprehensive terms of business.
We have sent the terms of business below over to a number of PI Insurance companies and they are indeed happy with the detail in the document – so based on this are happy to allow individuals to purchase a copy of this terms of business which has been professional draft this year by a solicitor at a cost of over £1000.
The cost to have a copy downloaded is only £147.
You can then use this agreement over and over know that you have a professional legal agreement drafted by a solicitor at a fraction of the full cost, which has been sent to several P.I insurers and they are satisfied the content explains your terms of business.
