• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Before Header

  • Home
  • What is LKP
  • Find everything …
  • Contact
Donate

Leasehold Knowledge Management Logo

Secretariat of the All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold reform

Mobile Menu

  • Home
  • What is LKP
  • Find everything …
  • Contact
  • Advice
  • News
    • Find everything …
    • About Peverel group
    • APPG
    • ARMA
    • Bellway
    • Benjamin Mire
    • Brixton Hill Court
    • Canary Riverside
    • Charter Quay
    • Chelsea Bridge Wharf
    • Cladding scandal
    • Competition and Markets Authority / OFT
    • Commonhold
    • Communities Select Committee
    • Conveyancing Association
    • Countrywide
    • MHCLG
    • E&J Capital Partners
    • Exit fees
    • FirstPort
    • Fleecehold
    • Forfeiture
    • FPRA
    • Gleeson Homes
    • Ground rent scandal
    • Hanover
    • House managers flat
    • House of Lords
    • Housing associations
    • Informal lease extension
    • Insurance
    • IRPM
    • JB Leitch
    • Jim Fitzpatrick MP
    • John Christodoulou
    • Justin Bates
    • Justin Madders MP
    • Law Commission
    • LEASE
    • Liam Spender
    • Local authority leasehold
    • London Assembly
    • Louie Burns
    • Martin Paine
    • McCarthy and Stone
    • Moskovitz / Gurvits
    • Mulberry Mews
    • National Leasehold Campaign
    • Oakland Court
    • Park Homes
    • Parliament
    • Persimmon
    • Peverel
    • Philip Rainey QC
    • Plantation Wharf
    • Press
    • Property tribunal
    • Prostitutes
    • Quadrangle House
    • Redrow
    • Retirement
    • Richard Davidoff
    • RICS
    • Right To Manage Federation
    • Roger Southam
    • Rooftop development
    • RTM
    • Sean Powell
    • SFO
    • Shared ownership
    • Sinclair Gardens Investments
    • Sir Ed Davey
    • Sir Peter Bottomley
    • St George’s Wharf
    • Subletting
    • Taylor Wimpey
    • Tchenguiz
    • Warwick Estates
    • West India Quay
    • William Waldorf Astor
    • Windrush Court
  • Parliament
  • Accreditation
  • [Custom]
Menu
  • Advice
  • News
      • Find everything …
      • About Peverel group
      • APPG
      • ARMA
      • Bellway
      • Benjamin Mire
      • Brixton Hill Court
      • Canary Riverside
      • Charter Quay
      • Chelsea Bridge Wharf
      • Cladding scandal
      • Competition and Markets Authority / OFT
      • Commonhold
      • Communities Select Committee
      • Conveyancing Association
      • Countrywide
      • MHCLG
      • E&J Capital Partners
      • Exit fees
      • FirstPort
      • Fleecehold
      • Forfeiture
      • FPRA
      • Gleeson Homes
      • Ground rent scandal
      • Hanover
      • House managers flat
      • House of Lords
      • Housing associations
      • Informal lease extension
      • Insurance
      • IRPM
      • JB Leitch
      • Jim Fitzpatrick MP
      • John Christodoulou
      • Justin Bates
      • Justin Madders MP
      • Law Commission
      • LEASE
      • Liam Spender
      • Local authority leasehold
      • London Assembly
      • Louie Burns
      • Martin Paine
      • McCarthy and Stone
      • Moskovitz / Gurvits
      • Mulberry Mews
      • National Leasehold Campaign
      • Oakland Court
      • Park Homes
      • Parliament
      • Persimmon
      • Peverel
      • Philip Rainey QC
      • Plantation Wharf
      • Press
      • Property tribunal
      • Prostitutes
      • Quadrangle House
      • Redrow
      • Retirement
      • Richard Davidoff
      • RICS
      • Right To Manage Federation
      • Roger Southam
      • Rooftop development
      • RTM
      • Sean Powell
      • SFO
      • Shared ownership
      • Sinclair Gardens Investments
      • Sir Ed Davey
      • Sir Peter Bottomley
      • St George’s Wharf
      • Subletting
      • Taylor Wimpey
      • Tchenguiz
      • Warwick Estates
      • West India Quay
      • William Waldorf Astor
      • Windrush Court
  • Parliament
  • Accreditation
You are here: Home / News / ARMA-Q / ARMA-Q: an ethical facelift for a flawed trade body

ARMA-Q: an ethical facelift for a flawed trade body

September 21, 2012 //  by Sebastian O'Kelly

Next month the Association of Residential Managing Agents unveils its new ethical facelift ARMA-Q – having never, in its 21-year history, publicly expelled a single member. (See ARMA’s draft announcement pdf at the bottom of this article.)

There is to be a 10-point “consumer charter” to reassure leaseholders and an apparently independent regulatory chairman, assisted by a panel of perhaps 12 industry and lay members, who will accredit the 270 existing ARMA members and vet ones that apply to join.

In addition, the regulator will rule on disciplinary issues, imposing fines and costs and, ultimately, expelling offenders from the organization. It is not clear at this stage whether this process will be public, which would be the only means of making it effective.

At present, complaints about an ARMA member are addressed internally by the company concerned and then go on to whichever Ombudsman scheme the firm has signed up to. These rulings are not made public, and the cash settlements are trifling. They cannot be compared to the redress achievable in the civil courts, or LVTs.

ARMA-Q is stressing the independence of the regulator, who will nonetheless be appointed and paid for by the governing council of the trade body. The appointment will not be from within the sector but a “person of established professional standing preferably, but not essentially, with a strong public profile”. An “overwhelming 200 plus applications were received” after the job was advertised in the Sunday Times in June.

The appointment is likely to be revealed at ARMA’s annual conference on October 11.

In addition to the regulator, ARMA is unfurling a new “consumer charter”, which is described as the “foundation of ARMA-Q”. At present, it is a 10-point declaration of basic decency in property management.

Some of the points are under-whelming, such as managing agents  promising to “comply with all relevant legal requirements and relevant codes of practice” and managing agents having “appropriate professional indemnity insurance”. But point 7, which says simply “Avoid conflicts of interest”, has potential to be more than a general statement of good intention.

Rob Plumb, chief executive of HML Holdings plc, which is a member of both ARMA and the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, is keen to strengthen this element. In particular, he believes leaseholders must be informed if the freeholder and managing agent are linked companies.

This was a point he made earlier this year to the London Assembly report into leasehold service charges, Highly Charged.

You can read his views on ARMA-Q and conflicts of interest here

Many of ARMA’s members are also freehold-owning landlords, or have a dominant landlord among their clients. The conflicts of interest here are obvious.

While mutinous, RTM-minded residents are a nuisance, a freehold-owning landlord can replace a managing agent whenever it likes. The inequitable relationship between leaseholders and freeholders (and the managing agents they employ) remains unchanged.

 

The full ARMA announcement of ARMA-Q can be read on this pdf: ARMA-Q

Related posts:

Default ThumbnailARMA-Q: a qualified welcome, but it is not a new dawn Default ThumbnailARMA-Q solves ARMA’s problems, not those of leasehold Stop keep asking who our members are, ARMA tells pensioner 20% of ARMA members ‘walk out over new ethical scheme’ Default ThumbnailFirst task for ARMA’s ethical panel: examine ARMA itself

Category: ARMA-Q, NewsTag: ARMA, ARMA-Q, Rob Plumb

Sign up to the LKP newsletter

Fill in the link here

Latest Tweets

Tweets by @LKPleasehold

Mentions

Anthony Essien (34) APPG (44) ARMA (91) Benjamin Mire (32) Cladding scandal (71) Clive Betts MP (33) CMA (46) Commonhold (56) Competition and Markets Authority (42) Countryside Properties plc (33) FirstPort (55) Grenfell cladding (56) Ground rents (55) Israel Moskovitz (32) James Brokenshire MP (31) Jim Fitzpatrick (36) Jim Fitzpatrick MP (31) Justin Bates (41) Justin Madders MP (75) Katie Kendrick (40) Law Commission (61) LEASE (68) Leasehold Advisory Service (65) Leasehold houses (32) Liam Spender (39) Long Harbour (51) Lord Greenhalgh (32) Martin Boyd (87) McCarthy and Stone (43) National Leasehold Campaign (42) Persimmon (49) Peverel (61) Property tribunal (49) Retirement (38) Robert Jenrick (33) Roger Southam (47) Sajid Javid (38) Sebastian O’Kelly (67) Sir Peter Bottomley (211) Taylor Wimpey (106) Tchenguiz (33) The Guardian (33) The Times (34) Vincent Tchenguiz (45) Waking watch contracts (40)
Previous Post: « ARMA-Q must expose managing agents’ ‘financial interests’
Next Post: ARMA-Q: a qualified welcome, but it is not a new dawn »

Above Footer

Advising leaseholders. Avoiding disasters.
Stopping forfeiture. Exposing abuses. Urging reform.

We depend on individuals for the majority of our funding.

Support Us and Donate

LKP Managing Agents

Become an LKP Managing Agent

Common Ground
Adam Church
Blocnet property management2

Stay in Touch

To achieve victory in the leasehold game where you are playing against professionals and with rules that they know all too well - stay informed with the LKP newsletter.
Sign Up for Newsletter

Professional Directory

The following advertisements are from firms that seek business from leaseholders.
Click on the logos for company profiles.

Barry Passmore

Footer

About LKP

  • What is LKP
  • Privacy and data

Categories

  • News
  • Cladding scandal
  • Commonhold
  • Law Commission
  • Fleecehold
  • Parliament
  • Press
  • APPG

Contact

Leasehold Knowledge Partnership
Open Data Institute
5th Floor
Kings Place
London N1 9AG

sok@leaseholdknowledge.com

Copyright © 2025 Leasehold Knowledge Partnership | All rights reserved
Leasehold Knowledge Partnership Limited (company number: 08999652) is a company limited by guarantee that is a registered charity (number: 1162584) with the Charities Commission.
LKP website is hosted at www.34sp.com
Website by Callia Web