Crackdown on rogue estate agents to make housing market less stressful
ROGUE estate agents face a crackdown under a series of tough new regulations.
They will need a professional qualification and to be transparent on fees they get for referring clients to solicitors, surveyors and mortgage brokers.
There will also be measures to stop gazumping, where a buyer loses out on a property after being outbid at the last minute. Housing Minister Sajid Javid said six in 10 homebuyers had faced stress and delays.
He said: “Buying a home is one of the biggest and most important purchases someone will make in their life. But for far too long buyers and sellers have been trapped in a stressful system full of delays and uncertainty.
“So we’re going to put the consumers back in the driving seat.”
Paula Higgins, of the HomeOwners Alliance, praised the move, saying: “In an industry tarnished by Wild West attitudes, these reforms will send the cowboys packing.”
But John Healey MP, Labour’s shadow housing secretary, said the proposals fell ‘far short’ of the changes needed to help homeowners and first-time buyers.
“Homeownership rose under Labour but has fallen under the Tories and there are now a million fewer younger households owning a home than there were in 2010,” he said.
“At the same time, this month ministers have scrapped Support for Mortgage Interest payments that helped over 100,000 homeowners last year.”