It's been an accident waiting to happen for some time... the steady growth, improvement and influence of free-and-easy, Web2.0 online estate agents and their worsening relationship with the sole-agency agreement-loving high street agents. At some point, there was going to be either a big rumpus, with property bloggers standing around shouting "Fight! Fight! Fight!", or (preferably) a big fight, with property bloggers standing around shouting "Rumpus! Rumpus! Rumpus!". Clearly riled by recent comments made by Spicer Haart's Paul Smith, Brightsale (generally regarded as some of the property business's Web2.0 good guys) are doing the only sensible thing and - after seeing some of their own clients penalised by high street agents for signing up online - attempting to bring matters to a head. They've written to the Office for Fair Trading, demanding they look again into the issue of fair competition in estate agenting, making some specific recommendations, including "cooling off" periods for disappointed homesellers. Here's Brightsale's Andy Etches:

“For such a senior figure in the estate agency profession [Smith, above] to call for contracts which prevent the use of online agents is regressive to the development of competition and to the evolution of estate agency in this country. ‘Sole selling rights’ contracts are iniquitous and clearly not in the interests of consumers. We don’t see how any contract which allows an estate agent to claim a fee even when a home owner sells his property to his neighbour following a private chat over a garden fence can possibly be defended as fair to consumers.”

The UK's hippest estate agents? [January 31, 2007]

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