Agency

OFT publicises discipline of estate agents

Wednesday 17th June

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has published online a list of residential estate agents or agencies who have been banned from working or given warnings.
The publication of this blacklist will enable consumer to choose reputable estate agents and avoid those who have committed bad practice. It will also allow suspected breaches of an exisitng warning or prohibition order to be reported to the OFT.

The OFT has, pursuant to the Estate Agents Act 1979, the ability to issue warning and prohibition orders against estate agencies and individual agents who have broken the law. Where there is evidence that estate agents have committed certain offences, the OFT can take action to ban them from working. These offences includes violence, dishonesty and fraud, and race or gender discrimination in the course of estate agency work. Estate agents can also be disciplined for non-compliance with legal requirements, engaging in certain disagreeable practices or for taking on residential estate agency work without belonging to an approved redress scheme.

OFT Press Release 2nd April 2009