Consultation outcome

Estate Agents Act 1979: encouraging new business models

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government
This consultation has concluded

Read the full outcome

Estate agents market regulatory reform: impact assessment

Detail of outcome

The government response addresses consultations on proposals to amend the Estate Agents Act (EAA) 1979 and repeal the Properties Misdescriptions Act 1991. It found uncertainty and a range of views among stakeholders about applying the EAA to intermediary businesses, such as private sales portals, particularly online.

Taking responses into account, the government decided to exclude intermediaries from the scope of the EAA. This merely enables private sellers to advertise their properties and helps sellers and buyers to make contact and communicate online.

This limited deregulation would help consumers and to the industry without unduly reducing consumer protection.


Original consultation

Summary

Seeks views on a proposal to open up the estate agency market to new business models.

This consultation ran from
to

Consultation description

Seeks views on a proposal to amend section 1 of the Estate Agents Act 1979, to change the current definition of ‘estate agency work’ to open up the estate agency market to new business models. The proposal aims to help businesses to innovate and grow and allow new business models to emerge whilst protecting consumers.

Documents

Updates to this page

Published 29 June 2012

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