Archive

Homeowners need greater protection from poor quality housing amid the Government’s plans for 1.5m new homes, an industry body claims. That’s the...

Councils are warning agents to abide by the rules following complaints from residents and businesses about the positions of For Sale...

By Mike Bilboe, Face For Business Buying or selling a home can be one of the most stressful and uncertain times for...

Concerns around market appraisals and how offers are handled are likely to be the key industry complaints this year amid lower...

A coalition of organisations representing consumers, financial institutions and energy suppliers has written to the Department for Energy Security and Net...

Trade and representative bodies representing the legal, surveying, estate agency and property management sectors, including the Conveyancing Association, have launched the...

Artificial Intelligence is now a part of all our lives, but my attention was grabbed recently by an AI critique of...

The term ‘time bomb’ is sometimes overly used in the housing market, and while it has been linked to many things...

In this, the second of a three-part series, David Beaumont continues his critique of the new Material Information Guidance. There are 21...

If you want to hear of a tale for our industry’s times - featuring housing shortages, planning disputes, rampant  inflation and...

Agents faced more complaints and paid out higher levels of redress last year, industry data shows. Annual figures from the Property Redress...

The role of a residential landlord has changed considerably over the years. What was once a relatively straightforward means of generating...

If you’ve paid even scant attention to Landlord Today or other trade titles, you’ll be familiar with the headlines about rogue...

Despite the announcements, the publicity, the guidance and the acres of website information, the most common complaint surrounding house sales is...

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) has warned it is receiving “too many complaints” about breaches of undertakings by solicitors. The regulator...

Estate agents have been urged to be wary of complaints around market appraisals and the handling of offers. The latest annual review...

Just one agent was expelled from The Property Ombudsman (TPO) redress scheme in the latest quarter. TPO has revealed that Price Point...

A man has been jailed for fraud after conning potential property buyers out of nearly £16,000. Jaspal Singh Juttla, 64 of Northwood...

Agents are being urged to be clearer about their terms of business with clients after the public face of The Property...

A controversial change due to be brought about in the proposed Renters’ Reform Bill is the abolition of Section 21 ‘no...

At a time of great uncertainty, the HomeOwners Alliance (HOA) and the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) have announced a partnership...

Eight agents were excluded from The Property Ombudsman (TPO) scheme during the first quarter of 2023 including collapsed online brand Doorsteps for...

Trade and representative bodies representing the legal, surveying, estate agency and property management sectors have launched the fourth iteration of the...

The Property Redress Scheme (PRS) has formed a new member panel that will be chaired by senior industry figure Eric Walker. The...

Property professionals, including agents, are being urged to make use of a dedicated small business banking dispute scheme before it closes...

High transaction volumes are likely to lead to more complaints about agents, a compliance expert claims. Paul Offley, compliance officer at The Guild...

The chair of the Council of Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) has warned firms that it shouldn’t be seen as a ‘light-touch’ regulator. Speaking at...

Increasing numbers of complaints about agents are being resolved without formal investigation but issues are becoming more complex, The Property Ombudsman...

A new Code of Practice for builders and an independent Ombudsman for consumers in the new-build sector went live this week. Customers...

Another piece about conveyancing? Seems like it's been a bit of free-for-all in the last couple of weeks on the woes...

I look back on when my dad helped me buy my first car and shared his pearls of wisdom on what...

Portals are aiming to boost consumer awareness of new material information rules rather than refusing non-compliant listings. Agency listings have been required...

It’s the fifth anniversary of the Grenfell fire tragedy, but are high rises any safer today than they were then? On 14th...

AllAgents has revealed the 10 worst rated agency brands on its customer review platform, with Purplebricks leading the worst performers. The reviews...

The number of complaints about estate and letting agents increased last year but fewer gripes were upheld. Data based on members of...

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has informally resolved a complaint regarding claims made by Purplebricks about home sales. The advertising watchdog revealed...

A new Deputy Ombudsman, Lesley Horton, has been appointed by The Property Ombudsman Scheme. She will work alongside Property Ombudsman, Rebecca Marsh,...

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has said it may consider complaints about ‘misleading SSTC listings’ on portals but suggests it may...

Trading Standards has advised agents to update listings once they reach the "sold subject to contract" (SSTC) stage. It comes after legal...

Agents and conveyancers have signed up to a new buyers’s and seller’s property information form that is described as having been...

The market’s likely to slow this year as the rising cost of living saps some buyer confidence, so agents are understandably...

A national newspaper has lifted the lid on what it alleges to be the backgrounds of high-end self-employed agents who feature...

Property searches are not showing up some new road schemes because they are classified by local councils as planning consent for...

Industry figures have come out in favour of the long-term programme of new compulsory information to be contained on property listings. From...

An estate agency is running a competition to encourage residents to photograph badly-located For Sale and To Let boards. The Basingstoke branch...

Will he stay or will he go? You don’t need me to say who ‘he’ is - it’s the only story...

EAT readers may have seen a piece in Friday’s property section of The Times about the long-running Simplify saga, which has...

The Dispute Service has been selected to operate the New Homes Ombudsman scheme, following what has been called ”a fiercely competitive...

With the conveyancing crisis at the Simplify Group now approaching two weeks old, it appears Purplebricks has been the worst affected...

The Advertising Standards Authority has stepped in following a complaint about a property advertised by Connells-owned Countrywide estate agents. The issue revolves...

The recent stamp duty holiday and the subsequent conveyancing logjam this triggered has acted as a wakeup call for the industry....

Agents are being warned about removing personal data and information from marketing material. Paul Offley, compliance officer at The Guild of Property...

Day in, day out, I see how good estate agents really are.  Whether it’s in my day job on Location, Location, Location...

The Property Ombudsman says there’s been a big increase in enquiries to its service in recent months, despite the pandemic.  In its...

The police have now received complaints about the tweet believed to have been sent from a personal account of a Savills...

No fewer than seven estate and lettings agencies have been expelled from The Property Ombudsman scheme today. Most of them are now...

Last weekend we spoke with Liana Loporto, NAEA Propertymark’s president, in an exclusive interview. Here we follow that up with an...

A consultation into the draft New Homes Quality Code has been published with a consultation period for the industry ending on...

A council cracking down on the increase of illegally positioned estate agent boards. Agents are required, under Planning and Highways legislation to...

The TDS annual review 2020 indicates that deposit disputes have remained low over the last year, at around 1%. This is...

An estate agency has apologised after a bogus employee posted offensive comments about Prince Philip on a newly-created fake Facebook account. This...

Purplebricks has removed advertising claims which suggested it sold homes for a higher sum, on average, than rival agencies. The Advertising Standards...

From 4 May 2021, your agency could be blocked from charging late fees, compounding interest on missing rent and taking any...

A prominent estate agent has warned buyers and sellers about the perils of the controversial Modern Method of Auction. MMA is now...

Agents are up in arms at a Rightmove restriction temporarily preventing access to parts of its listing back-end.  Agents received an email...

New guidance has been issued in a bid to allow agents to get the insurance payouts they expect from the Business...

Being a letting agent today means keeping up to date with the long list of rules and regulations governing how a...

Let’s address the elephant in the room first - the property sector and how we market properties is changing. Gone are the...

A new body which says it will “champion better outcomes for buyers” is described as independent but is to be chaired...

There is little doubt that the last year was one which none of us will easily forget both personally and professionally....

Propertymark has told the government that it needs to introduce overarching regulation of agents now, because existing piecemeal provisions are unmanageable...

Many independents will be based in the capital, but given its size and breadth they may get drowned out even more...

The Property Ombudsman says there have been more complaints lodged about agents so far in 2020 than in 2019. This is despite...

First off, hello and welcome to this new series – appearing in Estate Agent Today’s Breaking News section each month –...

Back in September, Westminster Council launched a new strategy to help 'protect tenants' and 'ensure they live in good-quality and well-managed...

The advertising watchdog has told the agency industry to clean up its act on four issues, with clarity over fees being...

New guidance spells out how leniency can be exercised on agencies or individuals who inform on anti-competition cartels of the kind that...

As the review of the recommendations of the Regulation of Property Agents Working Group continues, Emily Hawthorne, mio Account Manager and...

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has encouraged people to complain if they are unhappy about working conditions and thousands of complaints...

With the high street open again, and the Chancellor’s temporary stamp duty holiday helping to stimulate the market, estate and letting...

It’s fair to say that UK estate agents don’t have the best of reputations, often featuring in the lists of the...

An agency that has now closed down has been expelled by The Property Ombudsman for failing to pay an award of...

House raffles and similar competitions have become mired in controversy in recent years, thanks to some of them failing to abide by...

There’s been a very large rise in the number of complaints submitted by consumers to the Property Redress Scheme. This is partly...

Earlier this month, it was revealed that property industry bodies have joined a new Code of Practice Steering Group to enact...

Purplebricks has changed the wording of an advertisement on its website after a watchdog stepped in following a complaint. According to the...

The new code of conduct for estate agents has been dismissed as “a waste of time” - and the senior industry...

Agents now have a chance to say what they think should be in a new Code of Conduct being discussed following...

Two companies that persuaded property investors to pay as much as £25,000 for a parking space have been wound up in...

The new Property Ombudsman taking over from October is Rebecca Marsh. She is currently Chief Ombudsman at the Legal Ombudsman and was...

Over the last few years, there have been a number of high-profile court cases in which renters took action against letting...

There’s been an explosion of anger about Rightmove’s pledge to undertake its biggest-ever marketing campaign - while at the same time...

There’s been a substantial 20 per cent rise in formal complaints about agents taken up by The Property Ombudsman.  The figures refer...

The Property Ombudsman has announced the expulsion of eight agencies, all for contravening TPO codes of practice. Most of the expulsions were...

The Property Ombudsman’s office is still receiving 40 to 50 calls a day from the public, even though most transactions with...

If it’s really the case that estate agents’ offices could be in the category of High Street premises first allowed to...

A surveyors’ firm has been wound up after courts declared that it had misled clients over the success of its core...

Agents are consistently being told that they need to get on board with change. And one could quite easily make the...

Future complaints about property raffles by individual home owners seeking to avoid estate agency fees will in future be handled by...

The new housing minister is Christopher Pincher, who for the past decade has been Conservative MP for Tamworth having had a...