Ombudsman for Estate Agents
The Ombudsman for Estate Agents (OEA) Scheme provides an independent service for dealing with disputes between Member Agencies and customers who are buying and selling residential property in the UK.
As a member of the OEA, we agree to abide by the OEA Code of Practice. This sets out a framework within which we must operate and sets the standards of service we should provide.
As a member, the Code is mandatory and rigorously enforced and compliance levels and consumer satisfaction are closely monitored.
The Ombudsman is completely independent, and will provide a free, fair and speedy review of complaints against us falling within his Terms of Reference.
We agree to co-operate with the Ombudsman and to abide by any decisions that the Ombudsman comes to. Any financial award that the Ombudsman makes in favour of the client is binding on us.
The Ombudsman will not normally consider any complaint from a client until they have completed our own internal Complaints Procedure.
National Association of Estate Agents
The NAEA is the largest professional estate agency organisation in the UK, representing nearly 10,000 members.
As a member of the NAEA, we agree to abide by the Code of Practice and Rules of Conduct as set out.
They are committed to raising professional standards across all aspects of the property market for the benefit of member agents and ultimately the home moving public
Property Misdescriptions Act
Essentially, the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991 (PMA) makes it an offence for us to make false or misleading statements about specified aspects of properties and land offered for sale. There is no general requirement to disclose information, but where information is given, it must be accurate and must not be misleading.
A false statement is one which is false to a material degree. A misleading statement is one from which a reasonable person would be likely to make a false inference, even though the statement is not itself false.
Estate Agents Act
The Estate Agents Act 1979 (EAA) regulates the conduct of us in the course of our work and lays down the duties that we owe to you - our clients.
The areas of estate agency which it covers include:
- the referral of offers to the seller for their property
- the disclosure of any personal interests which may exist in a property sale
- the disclosure to the seller of services offered by us to buyers of their property
In practice, the purpose of the act is to make sure that we act in the best interests of our clients, and that both buyers and sellers are treated honestly, fairly and promptly.
The Act is enforced by local Trading Standards departments and the Office of Fair Trading, who have the power to issue warning or prohibition notices against those persons whom it considers to be unfit to carry on estate agency work.
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Money Laundering
Money Laundering is the way in which criminals disguise the true origin and ownership of the proceeds of their criminal activities so that it appears to come from a legitimate source - thereby changing the proceeds from “dirty” money to “clean”.
Criminals who launder money often do so through the sale and purchase of property. For this very reason, all estate agents are now subject to Money Laundering Regulations and we are required to verify the name and address details of customers who instruct us to sell a property on their behalf.
If in the course of doing so we believe we have come across criminal conduct which may represent the laundering of money through property, we must submit a report to the SOCA - Serious Organised Crime Agency.
As Cumberland Estate Agents Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cumberland Building Society, it must maintain the highest standards of service, integrity and customer care.
