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The Labour conference is to consider a proposal for estate agents to be brought under the ambit of the Financial Conduct Authority.

The proposal comes from the Labour Housing Group, led by former St Albans MP Kerry Pollard. It is one of 50 key policies put forward by the group, which describes itself as assisting the party create its housing policy for its next period in government.

Some of the points in our plan are already party policy, others are up for debate. Many do not require legislation; others are the basis of a Housing Act early in the life of the next Labour Government says Pollard.

The suggestion that agents must be regulated by the FCA is not yet official party policy but should it ever become law, it would have seismic repurcussions for the industry.

The FCA undertakes what it calls continuous conduct assessment of large firms and regular assessment for smaller firms - for obvious financial companies currently under the ambit of the FCA, this requires substantial overheads in terms of compliance and transparency departments, of a kind not operated by any estate agency currently.

The FCA also monitors products, which may well have repurcussions for agents and portals which offer or operate pricing tools.

There would also be a clash between the FCA's powers to enforce compensation to consumers who are wronged' by FCA-regulated firms, and the apparently similar powers of the three ombudsman-style services which currently exist within the estate agency industry.

Comments

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    Wow! All estate agents will probably have to take an exam before they're allowed to practice and will have to undertake CPD once they're in business. I thought this was was what RICS and NAEA members did anyway (although chartered surveyors aren't trained to sell houses!). What a good idea!

    • 23 September 2014 08:34 AM
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    The way things are going in this country may I suggest that the Government takes over he industry completely and all estate/letting agents become well paid Civil Servants with all the 'perks'.

    • 23 September 2014 07:49 AM
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