Hansard

I would not dispute that. I have heard a variety of figures mentioned. I have also heard about what, in the trade, are loosely called gentlemen’s agreements, whereby the factor’s brother-in-law paints the close and the transaction is kept in the family. That is the bad side of factoring, but there are very many good factors who work well with the people for whom they are contracted to work.

I am extremely interested in switching, to which it is important to devote some of my time. There is a need for people to understand what the current rules say. Most people have the right to switch, whether through their title deeds, the Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004 or some other legislation. The problem that we encounter is that switching requires a majority of the eligible people to attend a meeting, and that can be difficult to achieve, because some of them might be absentee landlords, might not be interested, might be on holiday, might be in hospital or might be prevented from getting to the meeting by the weather. It can therefore be quite difficult to change factor, even when people in a property or development feel that that is the right thing to do.

However, we must be extremely careful if we want to consider changing how people can switch. What could be put in place of a majority? It would have to be a minority. When a small number of people in a development come together, they might have a good shared agenda, but sometimes they might not have such a good shared agenda, in which case problems could come to the surface—the very problems that we are trying to resolve by means of the bill.

I take Robert Brown’s point about sheltered housing complexes. As he mentioned, he has had an interest in Stonelaw Court, which I have visited. In fact, the committee heard evidence from Ms Murray of Stonelaw Court on the difficulties that residents have had. I think that it is unacceptable that their lifts, their car parking spaces and the flat for the warden can form part of the consideration of what makes a majority, which allows the person who developed the property in the first place to have a controlling interest. That needs to be resolved. However, if we want to go into switching—I am happy to do so—we must be careful about it, because we do not want to create problems that are similar to those that we are trying to resolve.

I am delighted to have the minister’s support, which he had indicated to me privately, and I welcome the dialogue with him. His support perhaps went to the extreme last week, when he lodged the motion to agree to my bill at stage 1 in his name, with support from Ms Sturgeon. However, I found out that that was an inadvertent move by the Government and not a deliberate ploy. Anyway, that support is welcome, in whatever form it comes.

Mr Neil described what he called three challenges, one of which related to the definition of a property manager. I am not sure—I will check it out—that the definition that I have provided does not cover the circumstances that he outlined; I think that it does. However, if it does not, I am happy to consider the matter further. An important point relates to the interface between title conditions, the definition and deregistration, which I might talk about in a little more detail.

I heard what the minister said about the costs of a panel versus an ombudsman for the dispute resolution mechanism, but we must think about other issues, too. Mr McLetchie was correct to suggest that the home owner housing panel is perhaps underutilised and that expanding its work—perhaps without an increase in costs—might be sensible.

We must consider what we are trying to achieve and whether an ombudsman system would achieve it for us. I have sincere doubts about that. Whatever mechanism we put in place must be independent of property managers and must be seen to be independent. I am not sure whether the ombudsman service that the minister mentioned would fit those criteria, at least in the eyes of people who have problems.

I am slightly taken aback by the minister’s determination about ombudsmen, given that he told the committee in connection with another matter that his view was that having a court or a tribunal to deal with housing issues might be the way to go. That is my bill’s direction of travel; it does not take us back—as I see it—to an ombudsman system.

I hope that I have covered several of the issues that members have raised. I am conscious of the time. I am grateful to all those who gave evidence to the committee. I listened to what they said with much interest. The Parliament has shown today that we all collectively listened to the issues that the witnesses raised and those that our constituents brought to us.

I look forward to working with the committee and the Government to ensure that the bill in its final form is robust and resilient, provides a more transparent system for home owners, and safeguards home owners and the good factors who work in Scotland from the very few bad factors who take advantage of our constituents. We in the Parliament have raised the problem’s profile; now we need to raise the standard of the worst factors to the level of good factors. The bill will be part of that process.