The OFT has made warning orders against a firm of estate agents and its two directors, saying they failed to disclose a personal interest in a property sale.

The orders have been made against Eastbourne Property Shop in East Sussex and directors Adam Upton and Adam Davison, under Section 4 of the Estate Agents Act. They have 28 days to appeal.

However, the OFT said it was satisfied that EPS and its directors had failed to disclose, promptly and in writing, a personal interest in a property sale to a prospective purchaser, which is both a breach of the Act and a practice that the Secretary of State has declared to be undesirable in relation to estate agency work.

EPS and the directors have been warned that if they again fail to disclose a personal interest promptly and in writing, they will be considered unfit to carry on estate agency work and they will be banned.

Mike Coates, assistant director in the OFT’s Goods and Consumer Group, said: “This case demonstrates the importance that the OFT places on ensuring that consumers have confidence in the house-buying sector and that they are not disadvantaged by those estate agents that do not comply with their legal obligations.”

He added: “The OFT, working together with local authority Trading Standards Services, will continue to take tough action against estate agents who breach the law.”

However, the OFT – which is going out of existence – is to hand over responsibility for regulating estate agents to Powys County Council in Wales at the end of this month.

Writing in the Spectator magazine, columnist James Forsyth said that the decision to pass the powers over to Powys “must count as the most bizarre government decision in a long time… When I was first told this, I assumed it was a joke.”