Housing experts join forces to boost property agent standards

12 Oct 2018 03:35 PM

Housing Minister Heather Wheeler announces plans to raise standards across the property agent sector.

Plans to raise standards across the entire property agent sector so home buyers, sellers, tenants, landlords and leaseholders receive the best service possible were recently (12 October 2018) announced by Housing Minister Heather Wheeler MP.

new working group, chaired by Lord Best, and made up of experts from across the property sector will consider options. This will include the case for regulation and the introduction of mandatory qualifications for all property agents so tenants, homebuyers and sellers can be confident they are getting a professional service and are being charged fairly.

At the moment, anyone can operate as a property agent without any qualifications or professional oversight. Many take a professional approach and sign up to standards of practice through membership of a professional body, but others do not.

The working group will consider the entire property agent sector to ensure any new framework, including any professional qualifications requirements, a Code of Practice, and a proposed independent regulator, is consistent across letting, managing and estate agents.

Speaking following the announcement, Housing Minister, Heather Wheeler MP said:

For too long, many people have faced incurring fees and bad service from a number of property agents. People should have confidence when buying, selling or renting a home.

Lord Best’s wealth of knowledge will provide a valuable insight and help us make necessary changes to ensure consumers have confidence when buying, selling, letting or renting their home.

Lord Best will be joined by representatives of agents and consumers, as well as independent experts, with the group instructed to report back to government in summer 2019.

Lord Best said:

There have been calls for tighter, fairer regulation of property agents from those representing tenants, landlords and agents themselves.

I am delighted to work with government, industry and consumers to advise on how we can accomplish this in practice, and I look forward to our working group achieving real progress together.

Other members of the group include representatives from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), the National Landlords Association, Citizens Advice, the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA Propertymark) and the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA Propertymark). This is to ensure the entire sector is represented and the needs of both businesses and consumers are considered.

Further information

Lord Best is an independent cross bencher and social housing leader. See his full biography.

The principal aim of the Regulating Property Agents Working Group will be to advise the government on a new regulatory approach to letting, managing and estate agents, in line with the government’s responses to its calls for evidence on:

In particular, the Working Group will be responsible for advising on:

Recommendations are of relevance to the whole of the UK. Lettings and managing agents powers are devolved, but estate agency powers are reserved.

recent survey by Which? found that 85% of landlords who use an agent are satisfied with the service and 67% of tenants were satisfied with the way their agent repairs and maintains their home.

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