Shadow consumer affairs spokeswoman Stella Creasy, who has already criticised agents who allegedly double-charge sellers and buyers when a home is sold through competitive bids, is now challenging the shift of responsibility for monitoring estate agency standards from the OFT to a Welsh council.
From April the Office of Fair Trading's long-standing oversight of agency standards - including issuing warnings and banning orders against agents acting dishonestly or breaching estate agent laws - comes to an end, because the UK government has abolished the OFT.
Powys county council in Wales won the competitive bidding process to deliver the service in place of the OFT; the UK government will pay Powys £170,000 a year for three years to run a body to be known as the National Trading Standards Estate Agency Team.
But Creasy says: "I question whether, at a time when we have growing concerns about estate agents, it is right to move the monitoring powers for the entirety of England and Wales to one trading standards body in Wales. I do not think that anyone could doubt that Powys trading standards officers are committed to their national role but there's a lack of clarity about how they might make decisions to enact that role."
Powys council, however, is warming to its upcoming new responsibilities. The local councillor with responbility for trading standards, John Powell, says: "We want to develop this project further with Powys becoming a centre of excellence for the UK on estate agency enforcement matters."
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