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News: TV programme will expose estate agents

Genuine estate agents around the country are getting prepared for a bit of inevitable bad publicity as a television programme, to be transmitted this evening, discloses ‘unscrupulous’ practices by estate agents.

In the Whistleblower programme on BBC channel One at 21:00, undercover reporters posing as workers in estate agents’ offices in the London area show how they discovered agents deliberately misleading surveyors, faking signatures and lying to potential tenants about the intentions of landlords, the BBC has said.

Some estate agents reputedly took properties onto their books at a high property price to tempt clients then later faked lower offers in order to get the clients to reduce their price to a saleable value.

According to the BBC, the undercover workers uncovered other practices such as taking backhanders, flyboarding and obtaining confidential financial information about their clients via their financial advisers.

The Office of Fair Trading has today launched the Ombudsman for Estate Agents new code of practice to try to ensure home buyers and sellers get a fairer deal when using the services of estate agents who are OEA members.

Former actress and author of several books on buying and selling property, Fiona Fullerton has lent her support to the code.

The OEA represents more than 40% of estate agency offices in the UK and deals with disputes between agents and buyers or sellers.

Commenting on the TV programme, Peter Bolton King, chief executive of the National Association of Estate Agents said, "The NAEA has been campaigning for better regulation of estate agents for some time now."

"Providing compensation for consumers who have suffered at the hands of bad practice is also extremely important. From 3 April the NAEA will begin to ensure that all members who are principals, partners and directors of estate agencies are a member of the Ombudsman scheme for estate agents."

"This is a positive step forward in providing independent redress for consumers. However the Ombudsman, like the NAEA, is a voluntary organisation and only mandatory schemes will fully eliminate the rogue element."

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