Propertymark: Are we finally breaking the code? - A view from Sean Hooker

Acronyms. As we all know, the property industry is riddled with these minefields. In my mind, our industry suffered as a consequence. The main offenders are, in most cases, the professional organisations and associations. This has, in my view, led to the impression the property industry lacks an understanding that they need to speak the language of the people they represent.

As soon as an organisation sets up to try and deliver standards or accreditation, some bright spark gets to work to come up with a catchy initialism which they either want to be an acronym or worse still, form a new word that they vainly hope will be accepted by future editions of the Oxford English Dictionary (or should I say the O.E.D).

When I first came over to the lettings industry, admittedly from the insurance sector (no angels themselves when it comes to this habit), I was confronted with a string of initials representing a whole host of bodies, organisations and groups. All of them were eager to include in their nomenclature what they did but in order to avoid long unwieldy names they all initialised them down to a handful of letters.

But are we moving to a clearer and more understanding property industry? Read the rest of my piece here.