Daniel Ford & Co Limited, managed by a Nigerian, Mr. Yemi Edun has clinched the ‘Best Property Management Agency’ at Lettings Agency of the Year Awards 2012 organised in association with The Sunday Times and The Times of London, and sponsored by Zoopla.co.uk

The London-based firm won in the Silver-Best Property Management Agency category. The firm specialises in overseas landlords, giving it an edge in the highly-competitive lettings market, said Edun, the Chief Executive Officer of the firm.

Judges praised “the agency’s highly compliant systems and processes, which are managed by a dedicated compliance professional,” a role they believe clearly demonstrates the team’s awareness of the increased responsibility of managing property for overseas clients.

Over 450 leading lettings agents from across the UK attended a glittering ceremony on Friday May 25, at The Lancaster London Hotel opposite Hyde Park where the winners of only dedicated awards for the lettings agency industry were revealed.

The awards ceremony was the culminating event of a rigorous and thorough judging process carried out over a four-month period by a panel of industry experts who assessed initial entry submissions before conducting an extensive review of the entrants, which included hundreds of telephone interviews and mystery shopping exercises. The whole of the judging process was overseen by The Property Ombudsman, Christopher Hamer.

The Sunday Times and The Times awards now in its third year as a dedicated competition have become widely recognised as the most sought-after and difficult to win. This year’s competition had more entrants than ever before with over 5,000 offices were represented but only the very best of the best were crowned as winners.

In his acceptance speech, Edun said, “we are pleasantly surprised at this recognition; this is a reward to our commitment to best practice.” He said customer service is clearly crucial to the agency, with “response times for client and tenant queries swift and communication with both consistent. Regular staff training ensures the team is kept up-to-date with industry changes, so they can offer clients a comprehensive property management service, which clearly outshines a whole host of its competitors.”

According to him, the firm represents a few Premiership footballers in buying and managing their portfolio. One of them, Nwankwo Kanu said, “When Daniel Ford is involved with your property you can go to sleep, Ford helped grow my London property investment despite my tight schedule.”