The regulation of sales and letting agents remains on the government agenda – but not even the civil servants responsible know how high or low in the list of priorities it is, or even whether it will be implemented within five years.

Speaking at yesterday’s NAEA conference, Matt Prior, policy lead on home buying and selling at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, said: “It’s certainly on the priority list, but where it sits on it, I don’t know.”

Prior said of the recommendations of the Regulation of Property Agents (RoPA) working group that implementation was “not a small undertaking”.

In answer to a delegate’s question he said: “It is not something you just do in half an hour and although we have five years [as an administration], we also have a lot of legislation to get through.”

RoPA’s recommendations, which have been accepted by the Government, include licensing and mandatory qualifications in order to practise as an agent, whether in sales or lettings.

Prior also said that trials of reservation agreements – which had been scheduled for early this year – would now take place later, and last at least six months.

Also at yesterday’s conference the NAEA launched its new sales protocol toolkit, aimed at gathering together information to speed up the transaction process and reduce fall-throughs.

In trials with 200 agents, this has succeeded in reducing transaction times down to eight weeks – with the target of cutting this further, to 14 days.

The toolkit contains paperwork at an early stage, for example a 16-page property questionnaire which agents can send to vendors before they even visit the house.

NAEA President Lauren Scott said it would provide buyers and sellers with a better consumer experience.

James Munro, who heads up the industry regulator NTSELAT, was emong other speakers. He told the conference that agents must disclose material information, including referral fees, at the earliest opportunity, or face being penalised.