Property Care Association and restrictive practises

I was recently made aware of extensive correspondence between the CMA and other organisations about the damp industry.  This is the text of an openly accessible letter to the CMA about the restrictive practises being promoted by the damp industry. The link to more information is appended.

Please note we do not in any way endorse the ISSE.

Dear Competition and Markets Authority,

ISSE wrote to your organisation in April concerning the anti competitive practice perpetrated by Property Care association(PCA)in favour of their own members and supported by RICS surveyors and mortgage lenders. Your initial response is that you do not respond to individual complaints. A further letter then
established that you were too busy investigating other matters to investigate this complaint.

When Angela Smith MP wrote on behalf of ISSE in May CMA then referred the matter to Sheffield Trading Standards. They have advised ISSE not to hold out much hope and that since May they have
still not investigated the matter. They said they would look at the case late July. So far they have not responded to further very recent E mails. This would imply that as it is now almost 3 months since they agreed to act but so far seem not to have commenced this process and thus regard it as a low priority of little importance.

An ISSE member then contacted Newcastle Trading Standards who have very firmly refused to investigate even an individual complaint and have informed ISSE several times that they regard it as the duty of CMA to do so not Trading Standards.

The public interest concern here is that RICS surveyors are not  trained in damp and timber issues most of which involve poor ventilation increasingly occurring due to the Governments' insulation drive. As a consequence consumers which include some 5 million asthma sufferers who suffer from damp buildings and 1250 die every year from asthma alone are being driven against their will and better interests to a trade body whose first interest is the support of its members making money from treatments which may
be unnecessary.

'Which' Magazine in 2011 in an article 'Unnecessary Treatments' found that of the PCA members it tested not one PCA member could tell the difference between a burst pipe and rising damp.

ISSE members who have available to them a suite of awarding body backed Diploma wards can provide a fully qualified and professional survey with right of appeal to ISSE in cases of complaint. Yet ISSE
members are having to leave the industry because of this anti competitive potential cartel and consumers in the meantime pay out billions over the years for unnecessary treatments.

This anti competitive marketing support is being actively condoned by Trustmark. The CEO of a scheme operator - the PCA, and now a director of Trustmark,  wrote to British Board of Agrement (BBA) in Oct 2013 to seek to prevent consumers from finding out that many damp proofing products do not work despite BBA issued certificates of 'gold standard fit for purpose' Agrement Board Certification. BBA state on their web site that there isn't even a viable test for those products. When Dept of Business Innovation and Skills asked BBA about this, BBA said in 'their opinion' the products work.

Consumers are entitled to a guarantee that they do work not an 'opinion' based on an admission that there is no viable test, as one does not currently exist.

The PCA web site makes claims it offers awards and its'members are fully qualified. However PCA web site does not inform consumers that these qualifications are issued in a self certified process by PCA themselves after a 3 day course. This is totally inadequate to understand complex damp and timber issues.

Consumers continue to be potentially misled into unnecessary treatments and use of several ineffective products because RICS members and mortgage lenders such as Leeds Building Society refuse to allow any other surveyors other than PCA members to undertake these surveys.

The above in the opinion of ISSE is a potential cartel to support businesses to recommend treatments to consumers that may not be necessary and exclude surveyors who are not likely to recommend unnecessary treatments and who do know how to advise them fully in an independently validated qualified and competent way.

Please advise as to what document entitles CMA to exemption from administration of the UK and European Consumer protection laws in full. Please supply authoritative documentation that supports
selective implementation of consumer laws that CMA has used in denying a remedy to this matter and answer how and why it has recommended trading standards investigate when trading standards
are not prepared to do so.

Please can CMA advise on the remedies and appeals available to consumers to support the administration of consumer law when CMA do not regard it as their responsibility.

Please can CMA provide copies of documents and letters and responses it has in its records to indicate how and whether it has dealt in any way with this matter.

Yours faithfully,

William Kidd

Chair ISSE

 

This is the full link to other information relating to extensive communications about PCA activity.  It makes fascinating reading:

Anti Competitive Practises