Property Week has persuaded the Government to introduce a new Bill to regulate estate agents.
After
an eight-week campaign launched in April, a DTI minister today told the
CMPi magazine he would be publishing a Consumer Bill this autumn that
will give consumers automatic redress if they are ripped off by estate
agents.
He also pledged to force estate agents to keep 'adequate'
records of their dealings with the public to assist Office of Fair
Trading investigations into rogue agents.
Property Week launched
its 'Regulate Resi Now' campaign after its readers, who are primarily
involved with non-residential property, became sick of being associated
with malpractice among agents buying and selling homes.
In a
three-page interview with the magazine's Doug Morrison last week, DTI
minister Ian McCartney acceded to Property Week's demands.
Property
Week editor Giles Barrie said: "Not many business-to-business magazines
can claim to help the wider public, but we are proud to have done so
through our campaign. This shows that titles like Property Week can
have real influence outside their own fields if they set their sights
high enough."
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