CML Director General Michael Coogan said:
"In an environment where everyone else involved in the transaction will be regulated - the conveyancer, the surveyor, the broker, the mortgage lender - it is ironic that the estate agent, who is in many ways the most important player in determining the outcome of the house sale, is the only professional who does not have to meet stringent, compulsory standards.
"This situation cannot be right. As mortgage lenders, we know that most of the time people are much more interested in their actual house purchase or sale than they are about the mortgage, or the other associated services. Regulation is necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff in a sector whose standards are at present too variable."
