A couple who face being banned from being estate agents because of previous criminal convictions have won a court battle giving them the right to defend themselves before the adjudicator who will decide their futures.

The judge described the regulator’s system as “unlawful”.

The case also spells out the workload that the National Trading Standards Estate Agency Team, run by Powys County Council, has in relation to what it was expecting when it took over as estate agency regulator from the Office of Fair Trading in April 2014.

The case further reveals that the independent adjudicator so far used by the new regulator is a member of Powys Council’s own staff.

The High Court action was brought against Powys County Council by London agents Christian and Angie Littlewood.

The pair have well-documented criminal convictions for insider trading.

In a transcript of the High Court judgement which EYE has seen, they argued that their crimes are in the past and do not impact on their fitness now to carry on their current business, which does not involve holding client money.

In the High Court last week, they succeeded in their Judicial Review claim, and – pending any appeal by Powys – will now have the chance to try and convince the adjudicator of their case that they are entitled to work in estate agency.

Former Dresdner Kleinwort banker Littlewood and his wife were arrested in 2009.

Littlewood was sentenced to three years and four months in jail, while his wife was given a one-year suspended sentence.

Press coverage at the time said the Littlewoods had used cash from their illegal trades to buy seven rental properties in Hampstead, London.

As well as their sentences, the Littlewoods were handed a record £1.5m confiscation order, which last week’s court ruling noted has been paid in full.

The High Court judge Mr Justice Holman said that these facts, under the Estate Agents Act 1979, triggered notices served by Powys last December, informing the Littlewoods of proposals to ban them.

The judge said that both the Littlewoods had given notice that they wanted to make representations against the proposed bans.

The arguments were over how those representations should be heard.

Powys has a two-stage system, in which an investigator examines a case and then passes it over to an adjudicator.

Powys proposed that oral representations be made to the investigator. The adjudicator would not meet, see or hear directly from the claimants, but would be given a tape or transcript.

Powys said its proposed procedure was permissible and lawful. The Littlewoods said they were entitled to make representations direct to the adjudicator, who was the effective decision maker.

The judge said it was open to Powys to devise its own procedures, as long as they were lawful.

He noted that Powys currently has a list of five adjudicators, but that only one – Sue Bolter – had made any adjudications to date.

The judge went on to note that emphasis had been placed on the independence of the adjudicator.

He also noted that Sue Bolter is Powys’s head of regeneration, property and commissioning.

The judge said that a tender document indicated that whoever took over the estate agents’ regulatory function from the OFT in April 2014 would get £178,000 annual funding, “but that the functions did not appear very burdensome”.

He went on to say: “During the course of the hearing the mask did perhaps slip a little and it became apparent that Powys has resource concerns as well.

“They tendered on the basis of about 10 cases ‘taken’ annually. But I have been told that since April 2014 they have already completed about 11 cases in which prohibition or other orders have been made, and they currently have no less than 41 investigations under way.”

But the judge said that any “resource implications” were irrelevant to the intention of Parliament when it introduced regulation of estate agents in 1979.

He said: “I conclude and hold that the procedure, which Powys currently proposes to adopt in their consideration of whether or not to make prohibition orders in relation to either or both of the claimants, does not comply with the requirements of the Act and is unlawful.

“If Powys continue to delegate the making of the decisions to an adjudicator, then it is that adjudicator who must personally, and face-to-face, conduct the hearing of oral representations.”

The judge stressed that his decision, for the claim for judicial review to succeed, only related to the particular case of the Littlewoods, saying he had no knowledge of the other 11 cases Powys had concluded to date.

However, he warned that the “present proceedings are essentially a pre-emptive judicial review to avert a future irregularity”.

EYE has asked NTSEAT at Powys for a comment. Yesterday, the Littlewoods declined to make any official comment in view of the ongoing situation.