Celebration time for Estate Agents?

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has announced that it is to consult on a proposal to repeal the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991. (

Under the Act it is an offence for an estate agent to make any statement (usually in the sales particulars) which would mislead a potential buyer or which is simply untrue.

 

The Act covers matters such as location, views from the property, measurements and size of rooms and garden and structural matters.

There is therefore a considerable degree of overlap between the Act and the Regulations - and indeed the powers of Trading Standards under both are very similar.

This has lead to calls for the Act to be scrapped and for customers of estate agencies to rely on their rights under the Regulations instead.

However, whilst the two sets of rules do indeed provide similar protection to consumers, it should be stressed that the protection is not identical, and added to which there has been, over the years, a considerable amount of case law flowing from the Act which gives Trading Standards and the Courts a degree of guidance as to the interpretion of the Act which simply is not available under the Regulations, given that they are relatively new.

We can only hope, if the Act is repealed, that Trading Standards and the Courts will continue to apply the same standards of enforcement which have been available to consumers under the Act.  If not, the days of "compact and bijou" may make a return!

If you would like to have your say on the consultation, it is open until 5th April 2011

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Tenants Rights - Changes to the rules

The Civil Procedure Rules are being amended and some of those amendments have consequences for mortgage lenders who have mortgages over tenanted (rather than owner-occupied) property.

In particular the rule changes will allow tenants about whom the lender has no knowledge (that is to say tenants who the property owner has not told the lender about!) who are living in a mortgaged property to apply to the court for postponement of any repossession order granted in favour of the lender.

That obviously has repercussions for lenders being able to sell the property to recover their loan.

The new rules also require lenders to notify tenants and occupiers of a property before taking steps to enforce a possession order.

In those circumstances any tenant who the lender has had no previous knowledge of can apply to the lender for a delay repossession to allow the tenant time to find another home.

If the lender does not agree to an extension of time the tenant may apply to the court for a decision.

At the moment we can only speculate about what effect these changes may have on the willingness of lenders to make mortgage advances to landlords in relation to "buy to let" properties.