Estate Agent Breaks Rules/Law - Compensation

A_Nice_Englishman

After reading the various horror stories about Estate Agents I thought it would be useful to draw people's attention to some things I have found useful in my research into the subject.

See the Ombudsman for Estate Agent's Code of Practice available at http://www.oea.co.uk and the National Association of Estate Agents Code of practice available from http://www.naea.co.uk/help/code.asp

Not all Estate Agents are members so these Codes would not apply to them.
However the Estate Agents Act 1979 and he Estate Agents (Undesirable Practices) (No. 2) Order 1991 obviously apply to all estate agents.

I found that in one case I was looking at the estate agent breached the codes and/or law in 12 different ways.

I would advise anyone buying or selling property to read and familiarise themselves with the Codes of Practice and would be interested to hear from anyone who has done this, found their estate agent was not following the Codes and got compensation after complaining.

clutton_2

how would you quantify the consequential loss of the EA not following the code?

A_Nice_Englishman

Say the inefficiency of the agent resulted in delay to a sale. Perhaps it fell through because the buyer could not raise the money but the agent failed to monitor progress and keep the seller informed so he could consider putting the property back on the market This could mean the seller paying £1000's in interest on a briidging loan.

There are some actual examples of awards made in Annex C of the Ombudsman's Annual Report which can be read on the site I linked to above.

lynzpower

very useful thanks for these

A_Nice_Englishman

The Office of Fair Trading have a web page aimed at consumers
http://www.oft.gov.uk/Consumer/Your+Rights+When+Shopping/Home/default.htm
but even more useful is the one aimed at estate agents themselves which explains their obligations under the law in reasonably straightforward terms.
http://www.oft.gov.uk/Business/Legal/Estate/default.htm