Estate Agents - two ombudsman schemes
This page contains information about the two ombudsmen schemes for complaints about estate agents, letting agents and surveyors.
What they do
Advantages and disadvantages
Which complaints are eligible and which are not?
Cost
Timescale
Procedure
Outcomes
What they do
Since 1st October 2008 all estate agents have been required to be members of an approved redress scheme. The Office of Fair Trading has approved two schemes:
- The Property Ombudsman (before May 2009 this was called the Ombudsman for Estate Agents)
- Ombudsman Services: Property (formerly The Surveyors Ombudsman Service)
Both schemes are full voting members of BIOA (for an explanation of what this means see An ombudsman overview). The majority of estate agents are members of the Property Ombudsman scheme.
Links to their websites can be found at the bottom of this page.
This information applies in England and Wales.
top
Advantages
- they are free
- they are private and confidential
- they are independent of the companies they investigate
- there is no need to attend a hearing
- the decision is binding on the company but not on the consumer
Disadvantages
- your complaint might not be investigated
- you may not get the outcome you want
- the majority of financial awards are quite low
- the ombudsmen will investigate poor service, but are unlikely to award significant compensation for negligence
If you think you have a negligence claim against a surveyor, for example, you should get legal advice and consider a court application.
top
Which complaints are eligible and which are not?
The Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Act was passed in 2007 and requires all estate agents to be members of an approved redress scheme. Two schemes have been approved by the Office of Fair Trading. Check which scheme your agent belongs to before you complain – the majority of estate agents are members of the Property Ombudsman. The Property Ombudsman also deals with complaints about letting agents who are members. Ombudsman Services: Property mainly deals with complaints about surveyors who are members of RICS (the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors). The largest categories of cases they dealt with involved mortgage valuations (53%) and surveys (16%). Only 10% were about property management and 5% about residential sales.
To complain to either of these schemes you must first have made a complaint to the estate agent/surveyor directly. If after 8 weeks you have either received a final letter which you are not happy with, or you have not received a response, you can take your complaint to one of the ombudsman schemes. You must be a consumer who is trying to sell or to buy a house in the UK.
Registered estate agents have certain legal obligations to buyers and to sellers. These are listed on The Property Ombudsman website. If an agent fails to meet these obligations you can complain. Complaints are likely to be about:
- unfair treatment
- avoidable delays
- a failure to follow proper procedures
- rudeness or discourtesy
- not explaining matters
- poor service or incompetence
You must have suffered some kind of financial loss, or stress and inconvenience.
Neither ombudsman can take on your complaint if the agent or surveyor is not a member of the scheme, or if the complaint is about something that happened before the agent became a member. You also can’t take your complaint to either ombudsman if you have already made an application to court or to another body such as the Financial Ombudsman Service. You must make your complaint to the agent within 12 months of the problem, and you must take your complaint to the ombudsman within 6 months of getting a final offer from the agent.
top
Cost
Both schemes are free to consumers.
You shouldn’t need a solicitor or legal adviser to represent you – both ombudsmen have caseworkers who will ask you for any further information they need, and who will investigate the problem thoroughly. You may find it helpful to get some legal advice before making a complaint, to help you decide whether to use one of these schemes or to go to court. If you do this, you can’t claim your legal costs back, even if you ‘win’.
top
Timescale
For both ombudsman schemes, complaints are likely to be resolved within three months.
top
Procedure
When your complaint to the estate agent gets stuck – either because they haven’t responded within 8 weeks, or because you are not happy with their response – you can complain to one of the ombudsman schemes. You can contact either scheme by telephone, email or letter, and you can talk to a caseworker about whether they can accept your complaint.
The next stage for both schemes is to see whether an agreement can be reached at an early stage as a result of the caseworker talking to both the consumer and the estate agent or surveyor. If you are not happy with an offer to settle made at this stage, you can ask for a formal review.
You will need to send copies of all the relevant letters and documents to the ombudsman – don’t send the originals, as they won’t be able to return them to you. The ombudsman will then put your complaint to the agent, and ask them to respond. The ombudsman will then make a decision based on what seems to be fair in all the circumstances.
top
Outcomes
Financial compensation will be made if you have:
- actual, proven financial loss as a direct result of actions or inactions by the agent
- and/or undue and avoidable stress and inconvenience – over and above what is a stressful and inconvenient process at the best of times
Both ombudsmen schemes can make awards of up to £25,000. In 2009-10, of the final decisions issued by Ombudsman Services: Property, 71% contained a financial remedy, and 70% of these were for £1,000 or less. Two awards were at the maximum level. Most awards made by the Property Ombudsman (84% of sales complaints and 75% of lettings complaints) were for less than £500 in 2009.
This means that if you are looking for significant compensation for negligence, or for an action which has caused considerable financial loss, you should get legal advice about your best option. You may need to consider going to court instead.
You may also get an outcome from the ombudsman which is not just about financial compensation – you may get an apology, or the ombudsman may criticise the agent for poor practice.
Once you have a decision from the ombudsman, you need to decide whether to accept it. If you accept it as a full and final settlement of your complaint, the agent is committed to complying with the ombudsman’s decision as a condition of membership. You will get whatever the ombudsman has awarded, but you can’t go to court afterwards.
If you don’t accept the ombudsman’s decision, you can either ask the ombudsman to review the case if you have some new evidence, or you can take your complaint to court.
top
July 2010
