Nita Nicola has been providing consultancy services to letting agents
since April 1999. She became an independent consultant in March
2000, prior to which she was a Director of the Liz McCallum consultancy.
Nita has been involved in lettings since 1986, when she joined
Home from Home Ltd (later to become John D Wood & Co Lettings).
Initially employed as PA to the managing director, during her eleven
years with the Agency she progressed from Lettings Administrator
at their Wimbledon Village branch, to Manager of the centralised
Legal Administration Department, which she was instrumental in establishing,
and which serviced six lettings offices. Her final role with John
D Wood was that of Legal & Compliance Officer supporting their
fourteen lettings offices.
Until the membership criteria changes in 2009 restricted membership only to persons actively working as a Letting Agent, Nita was a Member (Fellow) of the Association of Residential Letting Agents.
Nita is ARLA and NFOPP qualified. She gained passes with Distinction in both the ARLA Level 1 and Level 2 Competency Tests and in July 2008 Nita also achieved high marks in the NFOPP Technical Award in Residential Letting & Property Management, resulting in her being short-listed for their Student of the Year 2008 Award.
Nita strongly believes that training and qualification is a valuable and worthwhile investment. It gives individuals and organisations a competitive edge and demonstrates their commitment to providing the best possible and most professional service. As a result of her own achievements, Nita’s clients are reassured not only of her level of knowledge, but also that she too is a worthwhile investment for their Agency.
Using her experience and qualifications, Nita aims to offer letting agents the professional assistance they require to advance and maintain to a high standard their day to day Letting and Property Management operations. She undertakes all of the consultancy services personally, but if required also has a select few professional associates with specific areas of expertise on whom she can call, thereby ensuring clients are provided with the best service possible.
Amongst the services she offers, Nita considers Training and Compliance
Auditing to be most important. She undertakes Staff Training – including Staff Induction Training and In House Training Workshops – and believes that
every agent serious about quality control and risk management should
have a training and compliance auditing programme in place in order to monitor
and maintain the integrity of their systems. Nita has been undertaking
just such a compliance programme for Knight Frank’s lettings operation
since March 2000.
Nita also works with Agents venturing into lettings for the first
time, assisting them in establishing secure and compliant procedures
from the outset, developing efficient Agency documents and providing
staff training. Such Agents include Curchods, the Surrey based Estate
Agent, and the Estate Company in St John’s Wood, London.
Nita has a close working relationship with SPA
Microsystems, the developers of the successful internet based estate agency software ASPASIA. She has created comprehensive Agency document packs, available configured and loaded onto the system at set up, which can be tailored to the Agent’s requirements and also maintained thereafter to reflect changes in legislation to ensure they are always up to date and compliant.
Over the years Nita has also worked with industry-connected organisations.
For example; she was appointed by The Independent Housing Ombudsman
to undertake the revision and streamlining of the literature and
forms for the original government Tenancy Deposit Scheme during
the pilot period; and she is an approved Independent Auditor nominated
by ARLA to undertake Risk Management Assessments where considered
necessary as part of their complaints investigation procedures.
Other services include writing Procedures
Manuals and devising Bespoke Agency
Documents (including Tenancy Agreements, Terms of Business and
standard letter directories), undertaking Systems
Reviews and providing Staff Training – including Staff
Induction Training and In House
Training Workshops.
In addition, Nita offers "off-the-shelf" Standard
Document Packs, including Tenancy Agreements and Terms of Business,
and Distance Learning Modules
for those agencies for whom in-house training is not an option.
With continual changes within the industry, and the introduction of new legislation such as the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations, the Deposit Protection Scheme requirements of the Housing Act 2004 and the Energy Performance of Building Regulations 2007, it is important for Agents to keep their Agency documents up to date and as a result there is much demand for the Document
Revision service.
As well as those named above, other agents with whom Nita has worked
include the Townends Group, Allsop & Co, JAC Strattons, Fitz-Gibbon
Residential, Coombe Residential, Grainger Trust, Cluttons and Green Locations, to name but
a few. A full list of those who have benefited from Nita’s
services, and what some of them have to say about her, can be found
on the home page.
If you have come via a search engine, please
click here to view the site
in full |