More than £2m of taxpayers’ money is to be spent on translators following today’s transfer of the OFT’s powers over estate agency enforcement to Powys County Council.

However, while a new tranche of funding will pay for consumers’ complaints to be translated, estate agents answering cases against them will have to pay their own costs – charged at 10p per word.

Powys Council, which took over duties at midnight, uses both Welsh and English languages on its website and telephone system.

It has today emerged that all documentation relating to agents will have to be in both English and Welsh – even when complaints and investigations are initiated at local Trading Standards level.

Similarly, TPO will be required to use both languages on its own website and use Welsh as well as English in its annual reports and communications, while the register will appear on Powys Council’s website in both English and Welsh.

The double-language requirement is part of a code on cultural equality, backed by the National Assembly for Wales.

The stance has, however, brought forward protests from consumer groups saying it is unfair that consumers should have to pay for translation services when dealing with local Trading Standards, before any such complaints get as far as Powys.

Whitehall officials have had to admit that the £170,000 annual funding for Powys will not be anywhere near enough to pay for translation and have upped the budget to £2.3m a year for the next three years.

However, the Department for Communities and Local Government insists that agents under investigation must pay their own bills for translation.

Translation services will be told they can charge 10p per word and must deliver translations within two weeks.

LATEST: Eye understands that following high-level talks this morning among officials, with translators present, it was decided at noon today to drop the double-language requirement.

* In another breaking news announcement today, Vebra company The Property Software Group said it had teamed up with Lancashire estate agent JD Gallagher in a deal that would allow customers to buy properties using Bitcoin. It said the deal was an industry first.