OFT 'too soft' say estate agents

THE Office of Fair Trading faced major embarrassment after its two-year review of the estate agency market was criticised by estate agents - for not going far enough.

Peter Bolton-King, chief executive of the National Association of Estate Agents, a trade body that represents almost 10,000 agents, welcomed the publication of the report - but said the consumer watchdog had not listened to the industry's own demands for greater regulation.

The OFT report concluded that self-regulation would be the best way forward and called for minor changes to the Estate Agents Act to clamp down on some rogue practices.

Many agents believe that this will be insufficient to clamp down on some cowboy practices in the industry as there is no requirement that anyone has to join a trade body which enforces any sort of standards in order to work as an estate agent.

According to Bolton-King, the report - which has taken two years to produce - ought to have gone further.

'We have long campaigned for the licensing of estate agents, which this report falls short of recommending. We believe the OFT should have listened to us and taken their recommendations further with the introduction of minimum qualifications and self-regulatory licensing.

The NAEA's criticism is another embarrassment for the OFT which was accused recently by an independent consumer body of dragging its heels over its review of the store cards market.

The National Consumer Council told This Is Money that the OFT had had to be 'kicked' into taking action over store cards.

The OFT did eventually look into the provision of store cards and has now referred the market to the Competition Commission for a formal study.

An OFT spokeswoman denied any embarrassment over the estate agents' reaction to the report. She said: 'This is a two-year study of the market and we stick by our recommendations. There is no evidence that a licensing regime would work better than the self-regulatory system.

'We examined other markets internationally where agents are licensed and found a high level of complaints. This shows that licensing doesn't eliminate complaints. We would also point out that the additional costs of a licensing regime would in all likelihood just be passed on to the consumer.'