Are you ready for your Trading Standards visit?
As households across the country will be starting their traditional spring clean to tidy and re-organise their homes, now’s the time to spring clean your office and check you are complying with the law…
BRANCH WINDOWS
Members:
The law requires agents to display their redress membership and we’ve published a checklist* below to ensure you comply. Agents that fail to do so are breaking the law and the terms of their TPO membership, and risk a £5,000 fine.
Member agents following the Sales and Lettings Codes of Practice must use the joint TPO and Chartered Institute of Trading Standards logo shown above. By using this logo, you will can reassure consumers that you are proud to be following a CTSI-approved Code which requires agents to go above and beyond the law to deliver an exceptional service to buyers, sellers, landlords and tenants. Click here to read more about the national campaign CTSI launched this month to urge more consumers to use approved code members.
Registration only: 
Please make sure you are displaying your redress membership using the correct TPO logo (see above). Failure to do so could result in a £5,000, which Trading Standards Officers have been imposing across the country in a raft of high street audits and mystery shop exercises.
Residential leasehold management: 
Please make sure you are displaying the correct logo (see above) for the reasons outlined above.
MEMBER CHECKLIST*
• Contract terms: Please ensure your TPO membership is stated in your contract terms, along with a link to the scheme’s website (www.tpos.co.uk) along with the 12 month timescale for referring disputes
• Websites: Trading Standards Officers have been looking at company websites so please ensure TPO’s name and website address is featured on your website so consumers know where they can refer a complaint to.
TPO’s Terms of Membership also require member agents to ensure the following:
• Branch windows: TPO’s logo is prominently displayed in the window of every branch office
• Printed materials: TPO’s logo features on the agent’s marketing literature, advertisements, letterheads and any terms of business/service contracts
• Don’t forget: Agents are also required to make copies of TPO’s latest Codes of Practice and the TPO Consumer Guide available in every office.
AGENTS BEWARE! 
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) was disbanded in 2014 and it is now a criminal offence for any business to mislead consumers and use the OFT logo. Please make sure your branch windows, websites and any literature (including TPO Codes) all carry the correct logos.
Please make sure you are proudly displaying your TPO logo and promoting your membership to win more instructions this Spring!
Tweet your pics! Tweet @TPOmb so we can share pics of your office and website proudly displaying the TPO logo
