How to sell a houseWhat needs to change?

Contracts should exclude customer liability in the event of poor service

In November 2007, the Government looked at how it could improve the standards of UK estate agents. We feel the proposed changes don't go far enough.

Contracts need to protect consumers

We think the Office of Fair Trading should protect consumers by ensuring standard estate agent contracts:

• Exclude or limit customer liability in the event of poor service.
• Remove or limit terms which could end up with consumers paying penalties to the estate agent.
• Are written in plain English.
• The terms ‘sole selling rights’ and ‘ready, willing and able’ shouldn't be allowed as they are unfair on consumers.
• The "sole agency" contract term should change so that you don't have to pay commission when the contract has ended, except in the case of private sales.

Model estate agent contract

If you're not sure about the contract an estate agent offers you, have a look at our model contract to see how it compares. If you aren't happy you could suggest they use this one.