» OFT rule against estate agent regulation

Other online property portals to be encouraged

Article Published: 18th February 2010

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Conveyancing Services

The Office of Fair Trading has decided against recommending that estate agents should be better regulated. Although a study, carried out by the OFT, pointed to the fact that one in four estate agents do not abide by any current rules and that homeowners had been the victims of unscrupulous practices.

It pointed out that many homeowners had been the victim of excessive fees but as there is very little option for buyers and vendors to go elsewhere when purchasing a property, estate agents will still be the main avenue for the housing market and homeownership.

The OFT felt it was unnecessary for any estate agents to have a minimum level of regulation to work with or to pass any kind of exam to open up an agency. It did however; recommend that the rules should be relaxed if companies wanted to set up websites to sell properties directly to the public without the aid of an estate agent and their associated costs. The emergence of Google in to the UK property buying business was announced recently and they are thought to have developed a portal that will be available later this year which completely cuts out estate agents.

A spokesperson for the OFT said “The housing market remains dominated by traditional estate agents with weak competition between them on price. As property prices rise during housing booms, so to do estate agents’ fees and the OFT believes that innovation in this sector, in particular through online services, could have a dramatic impact on the cost of buying and selling a home”.