Forum Brief: Estate agents

Which? has launched the Move It campaign, aimed at tackling rogue estate agents. With new research showing that less than half of consumers think that estate agents pass all offers to sellers, when failure to do so is an explicitly criminal act.

Government Response: Department of Trade and Industry

A spokesman for the DTI said: "We are considering the OFT recommendations in detail and will be meeting consumer and industry representatives, including the Consumers' Association, to discuss the report during the 90-day response period.  The government will make an official response in June."

Forum Response: Consumers' Association

Director of Which? campaigns, Nick Stace, said: “Dodgy practice has left the public exposed to the unchecked, often illegal whims of rogue estate agents for far too long. And the recent OFT report wimped out of a perfect opportunity to protect long suffering home-movers. 

“The situation is ludicrous. With estate agents reaping huge financial rewards but offering, at best, very little service in return, and at worst extracting large sums of cash from consumers on false pretences, the government must step in and reject the OFT report as well as order an immediate review of the unenforceable Estate Agents Act.

“The industry itself has called for better regulation; recognising the need to protect honest practices and individuals in the industry. The question however still remains: why are the regulatory powers shying away from providing consumers with the basic right to be protected from unscrupulous estate agents?

“Which? is stepping in where the OFT has failed to ensure people get a fair deal when making the biggest purchasing decision of their lives.”

Forum Response: Council of Mortgage Lenders

CML director general Michael Coogan said: "In an environment where everyone else involved in the transaction will be regulated - the conveyancer, the surveyor, the broker, the mortgage lender - it is ironic that the estate agent, who is in many ways the most important player in determining the outcome of the house sale, is the only professional who does not have to meet stringent, compulsory standards.

"This situation cannot be right.  As mortgage lenders, we know that most of the time people are much more interested in their actual house purchase or sale than they are about the mortgage, or the other associated services.  Regulation is necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff in a sector whose standards are at present too variable."