Estate agents ''not trained well enough''

A backlash against estate agents has begun with people choosing property auctions and private sales instead because, according to some, "all estate agents should be more trained".

Currently estate agents are able to work despite not having qualifications or training and this is thought to be the cause of incidents of bad practice and the reason why estate agents are so mistrusted by the public.

However, to counter this, the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) has recommended that all estate agents sign up to the Office of Fair Trading''s (OFT''s) code of conduct for the profession, which was launched over a year ago.

Peter Bolton King, the chief executive of the NAEA, said: "We have always advocated that an agent should meet minimum competency standards and that means meeting our own qualification standard, the QCA, which shows an understanding of the business, be that in construction or law."

He said that all estate agents should prove competency standards before taking a qualification and that this should improve public confidence in the industry.


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