The Government has no plans to ban estate agents who have been banned from lettings, and no plans to ban prohibited letting agents from sales.
Ministers also have no plans to make publicly available a register of banned letting agents – due to come into force next year.
Housing minister Gavin Barwell made both these points clear in written answers to questions from Labour MP Helen Hayes, who represents Dulwich and West Norwood.
Barwell insisted that sales and lettings are completely different activities.
Sales agents can currently be banned under the Estate Agents Act, but can set up as letting agents, even if they have only just left jail. This situation will be allowed to continue.
Letting agents cannot currently be banned but this is due to change next year under the new Housing and Planning Act. A blacklist of banned letting agents and landlords will not be available to the public: it will only be available for local authorities and central government to inspect.
Banned letting agents, even those with criminal convictions and who may also have just come out of jail, will be able to practise as sales agents – despite being on a blacklist that few will be able to see.
Hayes, a member of the CLG Select Committee, first asked what assessment had been made of the potential merits of extending a ban from operating as a letting agent or sales agent to include a ban on operating as a sales agent or letting agent.
Barwell’s response was: “The Housing and Planning Act 2016 introduces a package of measures to help local authorities crack down on rogue landlords and letting agents.
“They include the ability to seek a banning order against a landlord or letting or managing agent who has been convicted of a banning order offence. This provision is expected to come into force in 2017.
“There are separate powers to ban sales agents under the Estate Agents Act 1979.
“Letting agents and sales agents carry out different functions and operate under different legislation.
“We do not currently have any plans to introduce legislation that would ban someone from being a sales agent where they have been banned from being a letting agent or vice versa.”
Hayes secondly asked what assessment has been made of the potential merits of requiring a local authority to keep publicly accessible lists of banned letting agents to prevent such agents from being able to operate in other local authority areas.
To this, Barwell replied: “The Housing & Planning Act 2016 contains a package of measures to help local authorities crack down on rogue landlords who exploit their tenants by renting out unsafe and substandard accommodation. The measures include a database of rogue landlords and property agents who have been convicted of certain offences or received at least two civil penalties for a breach of housing legislation.
“The database will enable local authorities to keep track of those landlords and property agents and target their enforcement action.
“Only DCLG and local housing authorities will be able to access the database, although the data will be made available publicly in an anonymised format.
“Access to the database is being restricted in this way for data protection reasons and because making the database publicly available would effectively blacklist all those individuals and companies on the database and prevent them from continuing to be involved in renting out or managing property, which is not the purpose of the database.
“Where a local authority believes that a landlord or property agent should no longer be involved in the renting out or management of property, they will be able to seek a banning order from the First Tier Tribunal.”
Speechless!
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To the long, long list of Housing Ministers who have zero comprehension about the market and agency add the name of Gavin Barwell.
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How confusing! sends out a very mixed message. Surely a rogue is a rogue regardless of whether it’s sales, lettings or any other profession. The consumer does not need to be exposed to rogues FULL STOP!
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And we worry there’s no one policing existing laws…
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Am I missing something here? The Government is going to great expense to create a rogues gallery then they are going to hide it from the people that would have most interest such as landlords/tenants! And then if a rogue gets caught out being roguish as an estate agent he can reopen the next day as a letting agent without fear of being named and shamed unless someone in the local council knows where to find the now hidden rogues gallery!
Isn’t this a bit like saying to the pilot of a 747 “you’re a naughty boy for being pissed on duty, now you can only fly little planes”?
Anonymised format?? WTF?? There’s a bloke (or he may be a woman) he’s white (or maybe not) he drives a Cortina type car and calls everyone guvnor – we can’t tell you his name but he has an office somewhere on the High Street from where he operates an estate agency but we can’t tell you who he is just in case someone that needs to know finds out that he (or she) has been naughty and shouldn’t really be there trading at all!
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Makes me think how little people outside our profession think of us.
sad day indeed !
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