Questions of truth and fiction about agents

Here’s a talking point for you.

The public’s ideas – and misconceptions – about estate agents are notorious, but when it comes to pure muddle, where do you begin?

EAT was intrigued to pick up a post online, which has gained some traction. The poster, incidentally, a Mary Crewkerne, is no diehard anti-agent lobbyist. According to her profile, she previously asked if seven was a safe age for a collie to have puppies.

Anyway, we think the following could be a useful training exercise for agents. No Estate Agents Act 1991, for example? Proof of identity required before an offer is passed on? Oh, and what ‘statutory bodies’ can you complain to about agents?

We’d be interested in your views. You can see the whole post here at ‘untruthful statements about the law, by estate agents’: https://groups.google.com/group/uk.legal.moderated/browse_thread/thread/7b75dbe0b2ee78f4

“Everyone knows that estate agents

* prefer prospective buyers for whom they can broker mortgages, on a commission

* so far as they can get away with it, encourage prospective buyers to think they’re obliged to receive financial advice from, er, an ‘independent’ adviser who is basically a guy from the estate agency

A few years ago, they were so frequently ‘forgetting’ to tell their clients when they received offers from cash buyers that some kind of regulation was introduced. Lo and behold, this allowed them to inquire in exactly the same way they’d previously been doing (and delay telling their clients about the offer), but it was all so as to enable them to be in the best position to ‘recommend’ an offer to their client!

My question concerns the fact that a number of estate agents have been saying things like: ‘Under the Estate Agency Act 1991 you will be required to give us financial information in order to verify your position before we can recommend your offer.’
 
They can ask for what they like, but the reference to legislation is misleading – and not just because no such Act exists.

They are also saying things like: ‘The law requires us to obtain proof of identity of an intending purchaser on or before the date the purchaser’s offer is accepted by the seller.’

It doesn’t.
 
They often refer to money laundering regulations in this context, but these regulations do not require that they do anything of the sort where intending purchasers are concerned.

Which statutory body should one report the makers of such statements to?”