ROPA reforms won’t break the bank for agen…

Further estate agency regulation won’t be too expensive for the industry, Lord Best has said.

Lord Best, who led the Regulation of Property Agents (ROPA) working group, has suggested a new industry regulator would need some initial funding to get started for costs such as staff but insisted it “wouldn’t break the bank” for agents.

Speaking to Estate Agent Today after the House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee, which Lord Best sits on, urged the Government to get on with implementing the ROPA recommendations, he said: “If you have 1.25m sales across the industry each year and agents pay a couple of quid per transaction for a regulator, that is not going to make a difference to them.

“Even £5 for every sale wouldn’t break the bank.

“If the agents pass regulatory costs on 100% to their customers, it actually doesn’t make very much difference at these rates.”

Lord Best added that he and the committee don’t have a regulatory charge in mind but suggested a fee per property rather than agency would be fair.

The committee has suggested a new regulator would make a difference by driving up standards in the sector and proactively enforcing against bad agents.

It said current forms of enforcement and redress are reactive and limited in scope and also called for the creation of just one ombudsman scheme for the sector, which could effectively mean either The Property Ombudsman or the Property Redress Scheme lose role.