Tesco was among those who were on the list to be specifically consulted by Vince Cable’s Business, Innovation and Skills department, about the proposed changes to the Estate Agents Act 1979.
The change is being made under BIS’s Red Tape Challenge, for which new housing minister Mark Prisk was previously responsible.
The supermarket giant was also asked by BIS, along with two online agents, EMoov and Hatched, to meet or to speak over the telephone, although in the event Tesco did neither.
No meetings or telephone conversations were held with traditional high street agents as part of the consultation.
The information emerges in a reply to a freedom of information request.
Also in response to freedom of information requests made by EAT readers, a full list of names has been supplied who were on the list of contacts for consultation.
The list, complete with BIS's own comments, is published in full below.
It runs to just over 100 names and includes Google, Which?, Rightmove and Sarah Beeny’s direct-sales site Tepilo, plus a number of the online operators who stand to benefit from the changes.
They include: Be Housed, Express Estate Agency, Halfapercent, Hatched, Homesmatter, House Ladder, House network, House simple, House Web, My Little House Company, MyPropertyForSale and Turtle Match.
In contrast, traditional estate agents are thin on the ground.
Among those on the list were REMAX Scotland, Spicerhaart, LSL, Connells, Countrywide, and Strutt and Parker.
But many big players such as Knight Frank, Hamptons, Savills and Winkworth (to name a few) are conspicuous by their absence.
All those who were consulted have now been contacted by BIS asking them for permission to publish their responses before the end of this month.
However, respondents can ask for their views to be withheld or redacted.
Those on the consultation list supplied by BIS in response to the Freedom of Information requests were:
Communities and Local Government (CLG)
Land Registry
Financial Services Authority
Scottish Government
Welsh Assembly Government
Department for Enterprise and Trade Northern Ireland (DETNI)
Local Government Association (LGA)
NTSB
Trading Standards Institute
Which?
Consumer Focus
Consumer Focus Scotland
Consumer Focus Wales
Citizens Advice England and Wales
Citizens Advice Scotland
The Property Ombudsman Service (TPOS)
Ombudsman Services (Property)
Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC)
Property Standards Board (PSB)
Property Codes Compliance Board (PCCB)
Law Society
Law Society of Scotland (LSS)
Law Society of Northern Ireland
National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA)/ NationalFederation of Property Professionals (NFOPP)/ NationalAssociation of Valuers and Auctioneers (NAVA)/ Institution of Commercial & Business Agents (ICBA - agent for sellers or buyers of commercial property)
Estate Agents Magazine (part of NAEA)
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)
Guild of Professional Estate Agents
Association of Property Finders & Buyers Agents (APFBA)
E-Homebuying Forum (EHBF)
Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC)
Institute of Domestic Energy Assessors (IDEA)
Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI) / Assoc of Independent Financial Advisors
Institute of Legal Executives (ILEX)
Association of Property Advertisers (APA)
Independent Surveyors Association (ISA)
Association of Residential Managing Agents (ARMA)
Home Builders Federation
Aberdein Considine
Allsop
Be Housed
BTW Cairns
Connells
Countrywide
Countrywide Estate Agents
Davies & Way Chartered Surveyors
Davis & Latcham
Designs On Property
Easy House Exchange
English Homes
Express Estate Agency
Google
GPM Estate Agents
Halfapercent
Hampshire Law Society
Hanslips
Hatched
Herbert R Thomas
Home Counties Property
Home Wood Group
Homesmatter
House Ladder
House network
House simple
House Web
Housesimple.co.uk
Lampons
Legal & General Assurance Society Limited
Legal Marketing Services (LMS)
LSL Property Services
LSL Property Services PLC
MDA Advantage
Miller & Son
My Home Move
My Little House Company
MyPropertyForSale
Neil Douglas Estate Agents
Optima Legal Services
OyezStraker Office Team
Phillips & Stubbs
Property Finder
Property Magazine Company Ltd
Propertydrum Ltd.
Property-match.co.uk
Really moving
Rees Page Solictors
Reference Line
Reid & Dean
REMAX Scotland
Rice Jones and Smiths
Rightmove
Ross Professionals
Slough Mortgage Company
Spicerhaart
SpicerHaart, Group
Stewart Title Limited
Strutt and Parker
Tepilo
Tesco
Thamesview
The Digital Property Group (own Primelocation)
Tingley Commercial
Turtlehomes.co.uk
Verisona
Warners Solicitors
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Comments
I have neither the time nor inclination to name by name analyse the “consultation list” but I don’t doubt that any consultation that was made comprised an email that was received by a non estate agent employee of many of the actual estate agency organisations listed and so the “consultation” will have been typically meaningless and largely invalid.
What again are the NAEA going to say/do about this nonsense? Probably as much as they actually did about the whole 2004 Housing Act fiasco, particularly HIPS. The RICS my firm’s professional body are no better either.
At least the PMA was taken marginally seriously back in the day. I recall a lot of my then corporate colleague area managers and directors panicking that the teenage negotiators would commit a major scandal by calling a house “attractive”, shock horror.
The much commented upon arrival of Tesco and the like into the market will cause many small City and to a lesser extent country estate agencies to close, in much the same way as we have seen the demise of the corner shop and filling station. Tesco et al will of course employ a few extra people and some will be taken from the ranks of unemployed former estate agency staff but on balance the public will loose out and the industry will too.
I know that in the small market town where my practice is based, Tesco who have a store is reviled and typically beaten by the locals and a relatively new Waitrose but it is still busy thus contributing to the billion pound profits. Without some mechanism to exclude Waitrose, Sainsbury, Tom dick and Asda will likely join in too if unregulated.
The government including the Liberals seemingly and quite rightly want to stimulate the housing market, I can hardly see how deletion of the PMA is a means by which this can be achieved. There are countless better, obvious solutions many of which will doubtless be voiced here but none in my mind include a dumbing down of the industry – still further.
Whenever they will we learn, buy cheap buy twice.
On a positive note the market must be a lot better than the press are allowed to report since this sort of legislation only ever occurs when Estate Agents are doing better – in the south…. and London in particular.
Good luck to all of you who are more than 2-5 years from retirement.
Well Hamptons and Savills are owned by Countrywide thats probably why!
No-one noticed that our favourite antagonist, Mr Hendry, is on the list...?
Could anyone enlighten me as to why OyezStraker Office Team - who supply office products and services - would be on this list?
Lets find out if he, his staff (lets include Mr Prisk) in that have used the services or could have had their opinions predetermined by unofficial lobbying by any of those firms who took part in this process.
A consultation that is effectively over before it is begun, should be considered pre-determined and there fore effectively illegal.
It is very obvious that there is a heavy commercial bias to the list but only biased towards large firms that will benefit commercially from the change. Financial benefit equates to increased corporation tax, no thinly disguised motives there then Mr Cable?
Notable by its absence from the list is Estate Agent Today?