Agency groups to discuss industry regulation in House of Lords

Representatives from Propertymark, Trading Standards and The Property Ombudsman (TPO) are set to discuss estate agency regulation in the House of Lords next week.

The House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee launched a short inquiry this week into regulation of property agents.

Its initial meetings heard from representative of tenants and leaseholders but next week it will focus on estate agency.

An oral evidence session will take place on 5 March. 

It will start at 1030am with Andrew Bulmer, chief executive of The Property Institute, Luay al-Khatib, director of knowledge and practice at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and  Timothy Douglas, head of policy and campaigns at Propertymark

At 1130am, it will hear from Martin Boyd, chair at LEASE, Allison Farrar, operations manager at National Trading Standards and Ombudsman and chief executive at TPO Rebecca Marsh.

The committee said: “The inquiry will examine the current approach to regulation of property agents in the residential sector, and in particular whether there should be a new regulator of property agents, as recommended by the report of the Regulation of Property Agents working group in 2019.”

The Government has previously said it is committed to introducing Lord Best’s ROPA rules published in 2019 but little has happened since.

Labour Shadow Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook had put forward an amendment to the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill that would have effectively pushed ROPA into law but it was rejected during parliamentary debates.

https://committees.parliament.uk/work/8267/the-regulation-of-property-agents