OFFICE OF FAIR
TRADING News Release (97/08) issued by The Government News Network
on 18 August 2008
The OFT has made
prohibition orders against two Hampstead estate agents banning
them both from estate agency work.
Malcolm Green, a director of Greenfields Estate Agents and Gem
Shevket, an employee of the same company, have been convicted of
offences involving fraud or other dishonesty as referred to in the
Estate Agents Act 1979. As a result the OFT consider them to be
unfit to carry on doing estate agency work.
Mike Haley, OFT Director of Consumer Protection, said:
'This case again demonstrates that the OFT will take a hard
line against estate agents who are unsuitable to continue working
in the industry owing to their dishonesty.'
NOTES
1. Under section 3 of the Estate Agents Act 1979, the OFT can
take action with a view to banning from estate agency work a
person (and for the purposes of the Estate Agents Act 1979 this
can also be a company or a partnership) who has been convicted of
certain specified offences such as fraud, or other dishonesty or
violence, or who has committed racial or sexual discrimination in
the course of estate agency work, or who has failed to comply with
the requirements placed on estate agents by the Estate Agents Act
1979 and its associated regulations ('the Act'), or who
has engaged in specified undesirable practices, if an adjudicator
finds that the person in question is unfit to act as an agent.
2. Before a prohibition order is issued, the person concerned has
the right to make representations to the OFT as to why the order
should not be made. If these representations are unsuccessful, an
appeal against the determination to make an order can be made to
the Tribunals Service, an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice.
3. Adjudicators issue and determine prohibition and warning
notices under the Act. They do so on behalf of the OFT, but make
individual and independent decisions based upon the contentions in
a notice, the evidence attached to a notice and the
representations of those to whom a notice is addressed.
Representations may be made in writing and at an oral hearing.
4. An adjudicator determined that Mr Green and Mr Shevket were
unfit to practice as estate agents. A prohibition order was made
in respect of Mr Shevket on 26 March 2008. The order came into
force on 23 April 2008. A prohibition order was made in respect of
Mr Green on 30 July 2008. The order against Mr Green does not come
into operation until the period in which any appeal could be made
under section 7(1) of the Act has expired. Mr Green has until 27
August 2008 to lodge such an appeal. (Mr Shevket did not exercise
his right of appeal).
5. After an order has been made, the person affected can at any
time, and on payment of a fee, currently £2,500, apply to the OFT
for the order to be varied or revoked.
6. The Act covers anyone who, in the course of business, is
engaged in 'estate agency work'. This means introducing
to someone else a person who wishes to buy, sell or lease land or
property, and/or being involved in negotiating the subsequent
deal. The work must be in the course of business, whether as
employer or employee, and as a result of instructions from a
client. The land or property may be commercial, industrial,
agricultural or residential.
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