Making all the right moves

When the time comes to sell your home, a little research is needed before choosing an estate agent. For a start, are they a member of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), or the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and have they signed up to the Estate Agents Ombudsman Scheme? These things will give you some comeback if things go wrong.

And things do sometimes go wrong, of course. However, of the 6,000 complaints the current ombudsman, Stephen Carr-Smith, received last year, by far the most common involved dissatisfaction with commission fees, not errors. Carr-Smith points out that sellers agree the fee with their agent in advance (usually one or oneanda-half per cent of the sale price for sole agency). "But many sellers don't see it that way, they feel the agent should only get a fee commensurate with the level of service," he says.

So what about a fixed fee? The Battersea-based agency We're Moving has a fixed fee of £1,500. Director Kirstie Riley says the agency manages to cut costs because, although it does have a high-street office and it does all the usual financial checks on buyers and completes the paperwork for sales, it does most of its business via email and a website. Buyers arrange viewings and make offers online, while sellers show potential buyers around themselves. According to Riley: "Because of the savings, people reduce prices and properties sell faster." We're Moving was launched last January and currently only handles south London properties, so it is early days for the concept.

Could it catch on? "Absolutely not," says the NAEA, pointing out that internet ventures have come and gone. "Estate agents are not just there to put something in the window. They deal with a lot of issues, from making sure houses are presented well to negotiations and multi-offers."

Simon Agace, head of Winkworth, believes advertising solely on the internet is a false economy: "The best agents should be able to prove to you that they can get a better price by exposing the property to a wider market."

But some agents have higher standards than others. Recently the consumer magazine Which? asked 10 homeowners to put their properties on the market, then sent researchers posing as buyers. Although this was a tiny sample, four of the six agents who received offers broke the law by failing to pass them on in writing, while, more seriously, one agent invented a previously rejected higher offer to persuade a buyer to offer more. Which? also found misleading contracts were a problem. For instance, while " soleagency" means you pay no commission if you find your own buyer, "sole-selling rights" entitles the agent to his or her fee whoever buy the property.

The Office of Fair Trading reports soon on a one-year study of the industry. Although unlikely to push for licensing, it is expected to recommend all agents sign up to the OFT Code of Practice coming in at the end of this year - signatories must join the Ombudsman scheme.

Meanwhile, as the NAEA stresses, most estate agents are professional. Good advice is to interview several and to remember that cost, while important, is not everything. Choose the agent whose approach feels right for you and your home. And read the contract carefully.

Ombudsman for estate agents (01722 333306; www.oea.co.uk); Office of Fair Trading (020 7211 8000; www.oft.org.uk).