Carsberg Review Calls For Tighter Estate Agency Controls

All estate, lettings and managing agents should face new regulation to protect consumers, according to a new industry-backed review of residential property released today.The Carsberg Review of Residential Property should be the basis for major reform of the residential property sector, says the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

The independent review into the property transaction process highlights three key issues that should be the foundations for reform.

• These include a proposal that the property transaction process and the provision of information for consumers needs revision.
• Home Information Packs, which the review says have not improved the property transaction process, could become voluntary,
  
• The current regime of voluntary regulation for estate agents insufficient and a new professional body similar to the Financial Services Authority or the Law Society should be able to ban individuals, and the new rules should extend to some developers and builders and those landlords who deal directly with tenants, the review suggests.

About 70 per cent of the 35,000 estate agents in the UK are currently signed up to schemes to enforce professional standards, but the voluntary arrangements leave little protection for customers of the many thousands of other letting and other agents.

He also states that those who offer estate and letting agency services to the public, must be qualified and properly regulated.

Gillian Charlesworth, director of external affairs at RICS, says: “Sir Bryan’s review highlights a number of key areas where the current approach is clearly failing...The processes for regulation and redress do not go far enough to protect the consumer and we agree that participation in regulatory and redress schemes needs to be both consistent and universal. They should include all estate agents, letting agents, managing agents and landlords.”