This week, the Rat and Mouse brings you exclusive news of a brand new website aimed at helping separate the pros from the, er, cons in UK estate agency. On the ground level, The Register of Estate Agents (ROEA) is another professional body with optional membership... four more letters for participating estate agents to add to their business cards. But it differs from the disappointingly toothless NAEA and Ombudsmen schemes in one very important way. It allows participating buyers and vendors (who can register for free) to comment on their actual real-life moving experience and leave ebay-style feedback for agents. So far, there are 7,000 pre-registered estate agents and 1,000 offices on the site. Presumably, ROEA will be working toward that tipping point after which it becomes noticeable if an agent is not a member.

So will the ROEA succeed? As the comments on the ROEA blog suggest, there's a need for this kind of thing, and the good estate agents (of which there are many, many thousand) will stand to benefit from such a scheme. As will potential vendors at the stage of choosing an agent... the site includes a nifty searchable Googlemaps mashup marked up with participating agents. Click the agents for a CV and (soon) comments. There's even talk of compensation for disgrunted movers... up to £5,000 if a ROEA-accredited agent fails in their duty (in the opinion of an independent regulatory body).

The Rat and Mouse applauds the ROEA's courage if it's really going to allow users to say what they wish. Home-moving is a high-tension, high-pressure area in which movers can be prone to misinterpretation and unrealistic expectation. I'm not sure I'd relish being held legally responsible for this kind of chatter... making it legal, keeping it fair, checking out attribution (after all, if estate agents can steal each others' listings...) could be a full time job if the website turns out to be as successful as it deserves. However, the Rat and Mouse also happens to know that the force behind ROEA is a highly experienced ex-agent himself, who has seen in other successful and interesting homesale and property search innovations since hanging up his car keys. Presumably, he knows what he's doing.

In the meantime, we will watch with interest, and bring you the very best of the ROEA's reader comments as they come in.