Burnham on sea

  • Latest property newscma taylor wimpey
    Latest property news

    Agents who break competition rules to face huge fines

    Competition watchedog the CMA says it plans to fine estate agents become involved in cartels as well as disqualify them as directors.

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  • Latest property news
    Latest property news

    Burnham-on-Sea cartel agent is expelled from RICS

    A Burnham-on-Sea agent and partner in Greenslade Taylor Hunt has been expelled from RICS after helping organise a fee fixing cartel in the Dorset seaside town.

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  • Latest property news
    Latest property news

    Letting agent spots an opportunity in town blighted by estate agency cartel

    Weston Super Mare lettings agency Glentworth has opened a branch in neighbouring Burnham-on-Sea to combat "negativity" of agents discovered price fixing in the town last year.

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  • Latest property newsAbbott and Frost Burnham-on-Sea image
    Latest property news

    Fee-fixing estate agency directors disqualified for three years each

    CMA reveals it has made two directors of Abbott & Frost in Burnham-on-Sea sign disqualification undertakings and is considering whether to add more agents in the town to the list.

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  • Agencies & People
    Agencies & People

    Competition watchdog reveals more details of Burnham agent cartel

    The government’s competition watchdog has made the unusual move of publishing more details of its recent investigation into price-fixing in the seaside town of Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset. In March this year the Competition and Markets Authority fined a group of agents in the town a total of nearly £380,000 after its investigation uncovered that they had held a meeting at which they agreed to fix their minimum commission rates at 1.5%. But the CMA believes that, because this is the second time it has caught agents undertaking such anti-competitive behaviour in recent years, it’s concerned that agents still don’t realise how serious such conduct is – or its consequences. The earlier case involved an association of estate agent in Hampshire who in May 2015 were revealed to have colluded with a local newspaper over the publishing of fees and discounts in adverts. Burnham cartel To highlight this, the CMA has published details of how the Burnham cartel was set up, discussed and what was said at the clandestine meeting. The agents involved were Gary Berryman Estates Ltd, Abbot and Frost Limited, Greenslade Taylor Hunt and West Coast Property Services (UK). The CMA says the anti-competitive activity kicked off in 2014…

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  • Latest property news
    Latest property news

    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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