Back in October we reported our success in convincing PCC to stop selling the register of HMO landlords addresses to anyone who asked - full details here.

A number of members have queried whether PCC have reneged on this agreement as the members concerned have continued to receive 'cold call' letters from potentially rogue letting agents.  As below, PCC have confirmed that they have not sold our adresses to anyone since the change was agreed.

Bruce Lomax, Manager of Private Sector Housing at PCC stated, "I can confirm that, since our agreement, we have not provided any third party information regarding the Public Register. We did receive a large number of enquiries in January for this information, mostly via the FOI (freedom of Information) team, which I would assume was all to do with the proposed introduction of the new mandatory licencing property description." So this is good news and our thanks once again to Bruce and team for their continued support in this area.

We do know that some previous buyers of the register are happy to sell it to anyone willing to pay for it - so we should expect to receive a few more 'cold call' letters but our advice to all members is to ignore them. Anything that sounds too good to be true, probably is too good to be true and if you are going to use a letting agent or any form of manager for your properties, never consider one that you don't have strong personal recommendations for from existing and past clients.

And if you are looking for a local letting agent, don't forget our Guide To Choosing A Letting Agent