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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Agent fined the most in Burnham-on-Sea fee fixing scandal speaks out
One of the four agents which last week agreed to pay fines totalling £370,000 following a Competition and Markets Authority investigation into price fixing in the Somerset seaside town of Burnham-on-Sea has given its reaction to the case for the first time following the announcement. The agents – which included Greenslade Taylor Hunt (GTH), Abbot and Frost, Gary Berryman and West Coast Property Services – admitted breaking competition law by colluding to set a minimum 1.5% commission fee for sales in and around the town. Charles Clarke (pictured, left), Chairman of GTH, has said that the fine covered activities during 2014 and 2015 by the company’s local business. He said that GTH cooperated with the CMA fully and that as soon as concerns were raised by the watchdog, an investigation of all offices and departments within the firm was undertaken. GTH is to pay the largest proportion of the total fine, at £186,054. “We are entirely satisfied that this issue resulted from the wholly misguided and inappropriate actions of one GTH Partner, acting entirely alone, at one branch of our group and that no other office or department was involved in any way whatsoever,” he told Burnham-on-Sea.com. “The partner’s actions…
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Four Somerset agents admit sales fee cartel and are fined £370,000
Four Somerset estate agents have admitted being involved in a price-fixing sales fee cartel in and around the seaside resort of Burnham-on-Sea and in total have been fined £372,233 by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Gary Berryman Estate Agents Ltd (and its parent company Warne Investments Limited), Abbott and Frost Limited, Greenslade Taylor Hunt and West Coast Property Services (UK) were found to have colluded together to set minimum commission rates for residential sales at 1.5%. This follows a year-long investigation by the CMA. Abbott and Frost Limited has agreed to pay £30,099, Gary Berryman Estate Agents £97,807 and West Coast Property Services £58,273. Greenslade Taylor Hunt, a partnership, received the largest fine, of £186,054. FINE REDUCTIONS All the fines involved included a 20% reduction for assisting in the investigation while Greenslade Taylor Hunt received a further 15% reduction ‘for leniency’ while West Coast Property Services’ fine also included a ‘leniency’ reduction, of 35%. The cartel was brought to the attention by a whistle-blower, Annagram Estate Agents which trades as CJ Hole locally and that, consequently, has not been fined. This is part of a strategy introduced by the CMA in 2015 to persuade errant agents to report competition law…
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ASA investigates agent over number of homes sold
A recent complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has highlighted the perils for agents of incorrectly using sales data taken from Rightmove’s Intel tool. The case involves an estate agent in Leicestershire who was reported to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for using a ‘misleading’ leaflet that used Rightmove data to claim that it had sold six properties in a specific postcode. Sales and letting agent CHQ Properties, which is based in the town of Shepshed just outside Loughborough and was set up two years ago, came to the attention of the Leicestershire County Council Trading Standards Services after it used a flyer distributed to homes in the LE11 central Loughborough postcode that included the claim ‘after selling six properties last week surely the best way of selling your property is with us’. Within its complaint to the ASA, CHQ Properties was challenged on whether it had really sold that number of properties in LE11 between 27 October and 2 November last year, as claimed. Trading Standards believed the flyer was misleading because it did not make clear which postcodes were included in the comparison, and that CHQ had not sold any properties in LE11 during that period. CHQ…
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CIELA to start pre-launch memberships from April, full launch on October 1st
The start-up of a new membership organisation just for independent estate agents called the Charter for Independent Estate and Letting Agents (CIELA) has moved on to its next phase. CIELA is the brain child of Charlie Wright, CEO of software firm Easymatch, who says independent agents need a separate organisation to help them fight against ‘corporate domination’. Charter Secretary Samantha Westlake says inauguration is due to take place tomorrow and that an interim monthly pre-launch membership fee of £35 is to be introduced for agents wanting to join from 1st April. This will be a few days before CIELA is due to launch the organisation to the press. Since announcing their intentions in January, CIELA’s 11 founding members have been consulting among independent agents, who they say have a strong desire for a ‘collective voice’. They also looked closely at several key questions including; whether there were enough issues and problems facing independent agents to justify a new organisation, whether CIELA would benefit consumers too, and whether there was enough support within the industry given the number of existing membership organisations. “It was agreed that the answer to all three questions is ‘yes’,” a CIELA briefing document circulated today reveals.…
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130,000 Brits owed £5.3bn in Spanish bank payouts, says Amanda Lamb
Queen of property TV Amanda Lamb (pictured, right) says over 130,000 British people are owed substantial Spanish bank payouts following a landmark ruling by the country’s Supreme Court. Approximately half a million Brits have bought properties in Spain in recent decades and such was the gold rush that at one point several well-known UK estate agents had overseas property sales people based in branches. The market has picked up again, too, and British buyers in 2015 made up 12.7% of all properties sold in Spain. The A Place in the Sun presenter says those who believe they lost money following the financial crash of 2008, when many people who paid in advance for newbuild properties lost their deposits when developments went bust, should contact legal firm Spanish Legal Reclaims, who she is working for. The company has launched a campaign to help Brits recoup the estimated £5.3 billion in payouts due from Spanish banks to UK investors. Monies owed range from £10,000 to over £500,000 per claim, it says. Spanish Legal Reclaims has launched the campaign using research published in partnership with the Centre for Economics & Business Research (CEBR) which shows the total pot of money to be repaid…
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Manchester considers city-wide To Let board ban
Manchester is considering a city-wide ban on To Let boards if a voluntary scheme does not work out, its local authority has revealed. City Council chiefs say To Let boards in Manchester are an ‘eyesore’ and accuse many agents of putting up signs ‘all year round’ and making some areas of the city less desirable. Councillors are to prepare plans to introduce a voluntary pilot scheme that will ask letting agents to ‘remove signs’ although the council has not clarified whether this means not using signs at all, or sticking to existing bye-laws about the removal of boards after a property has been let. But either way, if this does not work, the council says it will request a Regulation 7 direction as set out in the Town and Country Planning Regulations, from the Secretary of State to ban To Let boards across Manchester. The pilot scheme will target the mainly students areas of the city including Fallowfield and Withington, as well as areas with the highest proportion of private rented properties. “The high concentration of these signs in some areas of the city creates an unsightly blot on the landscape and can be a real eyesore for local residents,”…
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Here’s what letting fees ban will really mean for tenants and agents, industry tells DCLG
The likely results of a letting fees ban for tenants and agents have been spelled out by the National Approved Lettings Scheme (NALS) in a briefing document produced by its Fair Fees Forum for the Department of Communities and Local Government. As well as highlighting how poor policing of a letting fees ban would lead to an unfair advantage for those who did not comply with the ban, the Fair Fees Forum says there will be “a number of serious disadvantages for tenants”. These include: Rents will rise as landlords seek to recoup the costs of referencing, deposit administration and inventories. The practice of high ‘month one rents’ in lieu of fees will increase. Block viewings rather than individual accompanied viewings will become the norm. Tenancy negotiations will need to simpler and more streamlined and less tailored. Tenants will have to provide their own references plus a lot of the information currently gathered by letting agents. Less help for tenants when Right to Rent enquiries become complicated or with utility bill and transfer problems. Property standards may fall as landlords do fewer repairs or refurbish properties less often. The Fair Fees Forum also makes the point that banning fees may lead…
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TDS courses now cover (much) more than just tenancy deposits
The Tenancy Deposit Scheme has launched a six part training programme for letting agents and landlords. The training expands on its existing courses, which have focused on deposit protection and adjudication workshops. The programme kicks off with the legal issues around setting up a tenancy and the full day course will be led by Solicitor and TDS legal advisor Hilary Crook. The first course starts in March and is available to book now, with future courses being released in the coming months. Commenting on the launch, Steve Harriott, Chief Executive of TDS said; “Customers have really valued our deposit protection training but told us that they want more detail. These courses all tie back to deposit protection, but take a detailed look at key parts of the tenancy life cycle. With such a focus on raising standards in the private rented sector, our training is intended to arm the property professional with the insight and very best practice to stay the right side of the law.” Further dates for the popular TDS Academy Foundation course and adjudication workshop, are also now available. To book, visit https://www.tenancydepositscheme.com/academy TDS wins place in The Sunday Times Best 100 companies Meanwhile, The Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS)…
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Nottingham prepares to introduce £600 landlord and agent licensing scheme
The City of Nottingham has begun its consultation on a draconian mandatory landlord and agent licensing system across the city’s private rented sector. First approved in November last year, the scheme is likely to begin in September 2018, assuming approval is gained from the Secretary of State. With a few exceptions, anyone controlling a property – landlord or agent – will have to apply for a £600 licence fee for each property they own or manage, which will be renewable every five years. It’s not the most expensive in the UK, though – Exeter charges £800 with a 15% discount for multiple properties, for example. The council is also proposing to charge an additional £100 a year for those not applying online, £50 for a missed inspection, £150 for a re-inspection, £350 if a landlord or agent is given a caution and further £350 if enforcement action is required. Landlords or agents who are accredited with either of two local schemes will pay a reduced annual fee of £460 instead of £600. The City of Nottingham says the scheme is being introduced because it is concerned about poor standards within the city’s private rented sector following 4,500 complaints by tenants…
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Rogue agent list must be available to all says ARLA as government mulls banning orders
The government’s plans to police letting agents and landlords from the private rental market via banning orders are ‘completely illogical and defeat the purpose of the legislation’, says ARLA Propertymark in its response to the government’s recent consultation. ARLA is concerned that the database of rogue landlords and agents subject to banning orders will only be available to local authorities and the Department for Communities and Local Government. “If there is no public access to the database how will landlords or tenants know if they are using a banned agent and how do agents see if those applying for employment are blacklisted or banned,” it says. ARLA instead wants access to the database granted to industries such as it and the NAEA because “unless we are included we will not know if our members are banned or blacklisted” and be able to take the “appropriate action against any member on the list”. But ARLA is pleased that the government has consulted on which offences by landlords and agents may attract a banning order and agrees with them, although it also says that agents who do not display their letting fees or who fail to sign up to one of the…
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