A Home Counties estate agent says there has been too little information made available about the new consumer legislation replacing the Property Misdescriptions Act, leaving small agencies particularly exposed.
Darren Walter, a director at Waterfords - which has six branches across the Home Counties - says many agents know nothing about the legislation which now applies.
Unlike the PMA regulation where buyers had to seek out information on a property themselves, agents are now obliged under due diligence to question and look for this information, and then professionally and openly disclose all findings to buyers before they enter into a transaction.
The regulation is comprehensive and there are some fundamental differences that agents should be on top of by now. This unfortunately isn't the case at the moment, claims Walter.
Agents, particularly smaller agents, haven't realised that new rules need to be adhered to. Consumers are also left unaware of what is now in place in order to protect them, he says.
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Comments
Agree completely, Hunters Estate Agents are part of a network of over 100 independently owned branches this enables us to have one central head office which keeps us up to date on consumer legislation - [url="http://www.huntersnet.co.uk/offices/wokingham"]find out more about Hunters.[/url]
Here is the aforementioned article: [url="http://old.estateagenttoday.co.uk/news_features/Lack-of-knowledge-about-agents-CPR-duties-amazing"]http://old.estateagenttoday.co.uk/news_features/Lack-of-knowledge-about-agents-CPR-duties-amazing[/url]
I agree and had a blog published shortly before Xmas in EAT on this very subject.
Julian O'Dell and myself have jointly trained over 300 sales and letting agency staff (which is a tiny fraction of the industry) but the level of awareness across the industry remains low and many agents are not even aware that the PMA is no more!
CPR has wide reaching implications and requirements particularly in the obtaining, recording and distribution of information. The days of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) are effectively gone and the need to provide timely and accurate information to enable consumers to make informed transactional decisions are now.
The end of the PMA in October last year was "buried" in the media by the bringing forward of Help 2 Buy part two. As the cases to the Ombudsman and potential prosecutions via trading standards increase, I am sure the industry will wake up. I however would want to ensure that any agency I was responsible for did not become an example or precedent for the industry.
Happy to talk to any agents about bringing them up to speed with training, systems etc.
Couldn't agree more.
Couldn't agree more.
Couldn't agree more.
The CPR legislation is better than what agents or consummers had before. The 79 Estate Agents Act was created long before the web kicked in so new agent/portal models were running outside legislation. CPR's in 2008 were not perfect but updates took place 2012 and consultations opened again in 2013 Dec to look closer at lettings.
My background was getting into estate agency 28 years ago. I founded INEA (The Independent Network of Estate Agents) and got involved in the CPR consultatons. If understood, there are sections that protect agents from rogue agents trading around them. Any good agents have nothing to fear, BUT should read the lengthy regulation. It gives good agents a platform to report the bad agents we don't want.
If extended CPR's could also harness portals from imposing portal rules over what agents can and should be doing.
If anyone has any queries about CPR's, Im more than happy having a better than average understanding of them. admin@inea.co.uk 01233 633633
The reach of this bit of legislation are quite scary - I don't think that we are really going to know quite how draconian it is until it has been tested in a court of law on several different aspects.
In general I have always found it better to be upfront with buyers and tenants - they will find out before long and then you have an argument on your hands.
The question that no one can answer at the moment is where the disclosure line is actually drawn - what is considered reasonable in terms of an agent's investigations.
Just another reason why there should be regular (annual) training for all agents. A good company would keep their negs up to date