Tesco was forced to close its ‘Property Market because the OFT ruled that it was acting as an estate agent by providing For Sale signs and facilitating buyer to seller communication.
Roger Young, Director of Enforcement at the Office of Fair Trading, could not have been clearer when he told the BBC on 13th October 2007:
"If an internet property retailer does anything for their clients more than simply carry an advertisement, for example if their website has a message board for sellers to contact buyers, they will be doing estate agency work. It may well be that most internet property retailers are acting as estate agents."
After Tesco knuckles were wrapped by Mr Young, you would have thought that other private sale sites would have pulled in their horns and withdrawn claims about exemption from estate agency status. Not a bit of it! On the HouseLadder website as of yesterday they were still claiming:
“You can sell or let your home privately and NOT pay the agents commission. As Houseladder is not an Estate Agent, but an advertiser, there is no conflict with sole or multiple agency agreements. It is the same as placing an advert in your local paper.”
Given that HouseLadder provides For Sale signs and facilitates communication between buyers and sellers - how can they possibly claim not to be estate agents?
It would seem only a matter of time before Mr Young catches up with HouseLadder and forces them to retract their clearly erroneous statement. For their sake, we hope that happens before they are sued by a traditional agent with a sole agency contract looking to extract a double fee from one of their customers. We are watching to see which happens first.
Come on HouseLadder (and the others), the game’s up. Either quit the business or move over to the full online estate agency model and compete with people like BrightSale. The OFT have made their position clear and you are now misleading your customers.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Why are HouseLadder and other Private Sale Sites still claiming not to be “Estate Agents”?
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4 comments:
The issue of private For Sale boards is an ambiguous one. We sought clarity from our local Trading Standard office regarding the OFT guidelines and their wording of the For Sale sign issue. Unfortunately they couldn't clearly interpret it either.
We agree that many private sale sites openly flout the OFT guidelines and are clearly offering estate agency services. We used the OFT document as a blueprint for ensuring we didn't cross the line into estate agency.
We offer no services what-so-ever outside those of direct advertising. Yes, we send out For Sale signs but, as per the OFT document, we neither erect the signs nor print our office number on the sign. The sign refers passers-by to the vendors specific advert on our website and, if a phone number is included, it is that of the vendor.
This is just another form of private advertising. In this case we are providing them with a private advert on a sheet of corex plastic as opposed to one on paper in the local newspaper or a page on a website (both of which are readily accepted by the OFT as private advertising).
Would a sign-maker be providing an estate agency service if he were commissioned to make a sign for the vendor, when he would clearly not be handling any of the enquiries?
It is our professional opinion that the mere provision of For Sale signs does not amount to providing an estate agency service. However we support you in so much as we would appreciate the ambiguity of the OFT's stance to be clarified, following which we would abide by their decision.
Many private sale websites highlight the oft-quoted accusations of unprofessionalism within the estate agency industry and milk them for all they are worth. It is disappointing that a number of these websites don't practice what they preach and risk bringing the reputaton of the private sale industry into disrepute before it has even had the chance of fairly establishing one.
People will always maintain the right to sell their home privately should they wish to do so. As such, there is definitely a market for provision of advertising mediums (of which a private printed, waterproof advert in their front garden is one). If a company provides this and nothing else then I cannot see why an estate agent or the OFT should have an issue.
We fully support your appeal for the OFT to come down heavy on any private sale website that clearly offers services that define it as an estate agent. We are diappointed by how many now offer HIP's as part of their service - as far as we are concerned this is a clear cut case of offering an estate agency service. Whilst we cover the requirement for HIP's on our website we currently run two adverts for third party HIP providers - we have no relationship with these companies and receive no commissions (not that that would be an issue but we prefer them to be entirely remote to our advertising service).
I hope you accept these comments onto your website. I have tried to convey an unbiased reply to your article and on reflection I believe it does more to support your argument than counter it. All we ask is that you acknowledge that a few private sale websites operate within the OFT guidelines.
Regards
Not wishing to harp on and create paragraph after paragraph of needless tittle tattle - But where does this leave the OFT's stance on the major property portals such as Rightmove, Propertyfinder adn Look4aproperty?
Roger Young, Director of Enforcement at the Office of Fair Trading, told the BBC on 13th October 2007:
"If an internet property retailer does anything for their clients more than simply carry an advertisement,
'for example if their website has a message board for sellers to contact buyers, they will be doing estate agency work.'
It may well be that most internet property retailers are acting as estate agents."
Does this mean that these portals are themselves Estate Agents and any High Street Estate Agent that uses them guilty of entering their clients into 'multi agecy agreements'
POT KETTLE?
Not wishing to harp on and create paragraph after paragraph of needless tittle tattle - But where does this leave the OFT's stance on the major property portals such as Rightmove, Propertyfinder adn Look4aproperty?
Roger Young, Director of Enforcement at the Office of Fair Trading, told the BBC on 13th October 2007:
"If an internet property retailer does anything for their clients more than simply carry an advertisement,
'for example if their website has a message board for sellers to contact buyers, they will be doing estate agency work.'
It may well be that most internet property retailers are acting as estate agents."
Does this mean that these portals are themselves Estate Agents and any High Street Estate Agent that uses them guilty of entering their clients into 'multi agecy agreements'
POT KETTLE?
pot kettle definitely - we've only been able to talk to a human answering machine on our numerous attempts at talking to brightsale. We hope this is a blip caused by the start of the festive season in november and that normal service will be resumed in 2008.
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