By Ron Kennor, General Manager of

 Robinson Jackson Estate Agency Partnerships

As in any profession there are some estate agents who fail to perform and give the profession a bad name. But over recent years estate agents have had to jump through an in creasing number of hoops both to set up and stay in business. The latest is the Estate Agents Redress Act which effectively means all estate agents must soon belong to some form of redress scheme like the ombudsman for estate agents.

We are also governed  by the latest money laundering regulations which means you can no longer walk in to our office with a suitcase full of money and buy a house – not that anyone ever did but it is one of the more popular urban myths of estate agency. Indeed we now have to report the existence or even likelihood of such a suitcase, and if we don’t we go to jail.

The Property Misdesciptions Act means we cannot give false or misleading information about any property, even if the owner wants us to, so the hyperbole and colourful prose of estate agents descriptions has been consigned to history.

Unfortunately the less than glowing reputation hasn’t and we’re still sometimes blamed for the shortcomings of the system in the UK of selling homes which puts buyers and sellers through stress for about 5 months and estate agents for their whole careers.

 In a no sale no fee environment only the competent salesman survives and if an estate agent or his operation get a poor reputation in the strictly local community in which he works he won’t stay in business for long. We all see estate agents coming and going who fail in reputation as well as business.

I am perhaps lucky that I am not judged purely on my last months sales but every month I sit down with a group of people who have been successfully selling homes since 1960 so I think we are privileged that people have come to trust us as an estate agent with some integrity as well as success.