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Redress for Complaints Against Estate Agents

From 1 October 2008 all estate agents in the UK who engage in residential estate agency work will be required by order to belong to an approved redress scheme dealing with complaints about the buying and selling of residential property. The Estate Agents (Redress Scheme) Order 2008 was laid in Parliament on 1 July 2008. It will come into force on 1 October 2008.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has approved the application from the Ombudsman for Estate Agents to run an estate agents redress scheme under the Estate Agents Act 1979. The OFT is currently considering two other applications to run redress schemes. Details of these applications are available on the OFT web-site (http://www.oft.gov.uk/advice_and_resources/resource_base/EARS).

Estate agents that fail to join an approved scheme will be subject to a £1,000 penalty charge, which can be repeated if necessary, and will ultimately be banned from carrying out estate agency work if they refuse to join a scheme.

Once the order requiring estate agents to join OFT approved redress schemes comes into force, the Housing Act provisions relating to Home Information Pack (HIP) redress schemes will be repealed. They will not be required as HIP-related complaints will be covered by EAA 79 redress schemes.

Complaints related to HIPs

HIPs were introduced in England and Wales on 1 August 2007 and now apply to all homes regardless of size put on the market. Sellers of properties need to have commissioned a HIP before putting their property on the market. Any estate agent in England and Wales marketing a property requiring a HIP must belong to an approved redress scheme. This means consumers have access to redress for HIP-related complaints against estate agents.

Redress schemes approved under the Housing Act 2004, for the purpose of dealing with HIP-related complaints are:

- Ombudsman for Estate Agents’ HIPs redress scheme

- Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ Surveyor Ombudsman Scheme

- IDRS Ltd Property Adjudication for Consumers Scheme (PACS)