Regulation & Law
News articles looking at national legislation and local regulation and the application of law to the residential property industry.
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HMRC quietly drops AML application fee for estate agents
Decision is made to remove the £100 fee just 24 hours before the latest and 5th EU Anti Money Laundering directive passes into UK law.
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Tide turns against Airbnb as Scotland and Bristol move to regulate
The huge increase in Airbnb properties being made available by landlords on short-lets platforms has prompted politicians to take action.
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Trustpilot reveals how its ‘star rating’ system really works for agents
It has been revealed that estate agents who use Trustpilot to promote their businesses can ‘game’ the platform because the reviews company gives newer customer reviews greater weight when awarding an overall ‘out of five’ score. The policy has been revealed by the Advertising Standards Authority during its investigation into the new eMoov, which has been using links to its Trustpilot page to promote the business. Out of the 2,179 reviews on its Trustpilot page, only 80 have come from clients dealt with by the new incarnation of the online agent, while the rest were generated while it was operated by eMoov Ltd, which is currently in administration. The ASA has told a complainant about the use of old reviews that it has held ‘detailed talks’ with both Trustpilot and the agency. Aggregate score During these talks over the past six weeks, the ASA was told that the overall aggregate score award by Trustpilot was influenced unduly by the most recent reviews, rather than older ones. ”We are therefore satisfied that there is not a source of concern here at the moment and so we are not investigating this further,” the ASA has said. But the complainant, Andrew Stanton, has…
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‘It’s time to stop estate agents over-valuing homes to gain instructions’
Former eMoov boss and now PR man Russell Quirk has called for property valuations to be regulated to stop the practice of over pricing homes to win instructions. In an incendiary blog published yesterday that will no doubt infuriate many agents, Quirk argues that too many are being lazy or revealing their lack of experience when deliberately or mistakenly over-valuing properties to gain an instruction. When done knowingly, this tactic should be considered ‘tantamount to fraud’, he claims. “The definition of fraud is the act of attempting to gain through deception and via deliberate trickery,” he says. “Therefore, telling a prospective property seller that they should expect to achieve £450,000 when £400,000 is the real number, is as dodgy as a timeshare salesman on a beach in Tenerife.” Quirk (left) says that, because most vendors sign sole agency agreements of up to four months, agents feel they can over-value a property and then persuade the vendor to reduce their price to a more realistic figure as time goes by, safe in the knowledge they have only one option as the weeks tick by; to agree to a lower asking price. Quirk is not alone in calling for property valuations to…
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Government to overhaul model tenancy to encourage landlords to accept pet-owning tenants
Current and vague official tenancy agreement used by many lettings agents will be updated to give landlords fewer reasons to reject tenants with moggs or dogs.
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Minister reveals £4m fighting fund to tackle rogue agents and landlords
New cash will include trial scheme to install snooping devices in homes where landlords or agents are suspected of managing the property poorly.
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Evictions system in worst state ‘for 28 years’ as government cuts bite
Claim is made by specialist law firm Landlord Action which says extra workload after Section 21 evictions are banned by government will lead to court system collapse.
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Queen’s Speech: Govt reveals comprehensive property reform programme
The Queen's speech also included promised reform of business rates and improved building safety legislation.
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Airbnb is NOT a letting agency, court rules in landmark case
Airbnb is not a letting agency and instead should be classified as an online platform for people looking for short-term accommodation, the European Court of Justice has ruled. This, it is claimed, will make it more difficult for local authorities to police the fast-growing online-only short lets sector that Airbnb has created, because many local regulations in the UK and elsewhere only apply to traditional letting agencies. The court case was brought by France’s tourism authority which had argued that Airbnb should hold a professional estate agency licence and that, because it did not hold one, was in breach of French law. The judges instead said Airbnb was an ‘information society service’ and not a letting agent. The court’s decision has raised eyebrows. A similar case two years ago involving Uber went the other way. Judges decided that the company was a taxi service and not an online platform. One of the key reasons for the judgement is that landlords have a choice where to advertise their properties to rent, but taxi drivers are exclusively contracted to Uber and therefore much more part of the organisation than an Airbnb landlord. Airbnb has welcomed the judgement and said it wants to…
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Upmarket letting agents face substantial changes after new AML come in, warns expert
Jerry Walters, chief of Lonres-owned firm Financial Crime Services, says changes will affect how deposits and rent are received and require landlords and tenants to be checked.
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