Powys trading standards bid for and won the contract to regulate the estate agency sector, which includes enforcement, including issuing warning and prohibition orders to agents who act dishonestly or breach the Estate Agents Act (1979) or ban agents completely.
HMRC has been appointed to register estate agents for anti-money laundering purposes. Failure to register remains a criminal offence.
However Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow, said there was a ‘lack of clarity’ about how a single council department would be able to manage all estate agencies in England and Wales.
“I question whether, at a time when we have growing concerns about estate agents, it is right to move the monitoring powers for the entirety of England and Wales to one trading standards body in Wales.
“Having read the proposal, I do not think that anyone could doubt that Powys trading standards officers are committed to their national role, but there is a lack of clarity about how they might make decisions to enact that role.”
Minutes from last Monday’s legislation committee of MPs, published today, exposed the disagreement over the allocation of the final contract.
Creasy said some bad practices could be allowed to prosper due to a gap in the regulatory functions of the organisations, in particular the trend for estate agents to charge fees to both sellers and buyers.
“Without legal clarity as to whether the contracts are fair, the risk is that the practice will spread, further affecting the chances of our constituents throughout the country getting on the property ladder,” she said.
“Our fear is that the proposals in the draft order, especially those relating to the estate agent market in this country, will make it much harder to tackle what I will call these emergent commercial practices, because they will fall between the remit of different organisations.”
She also highlighted the difficulties that would arise from Powys-based trading standards being forced to travel around England and Wales.
Jenny Willott, Liberal Democrat MP for Cardiff Central, reassured Creasy the department for business, innovation and skills would monitor the new arrangements and that standards would not fall.
“The role of Powys county council will be the same as that of the OFT currently. The property ombudsman will still be able to act in alternative dispute resolution matters and so on, and Powys county council will approve future redress scheme applications in the same way as the OFT does now.
“The service will not be delivered differently, it will just be delivered by a different body.”
