This move comes following a fact-finding visit undertaken by Christopher Hamer to review the country’s property market and assess the relevance to it of the OEA.
The OEA already offers its mediation and redress service through 130 estate agency offices in Scotland, compared with 11,000 in England and Wales combined. But estate agency businesses are expanding in Scotland.
“In the past, solictors’ property centres have dominated the Scottish property market, making it different from the rest of the UK,” explained Hamer. “However, I’ve been told that something like 60 per cent of properties in Glasgow are now marketed through estate agencies rather than solicitors.
“In Edinburgh, the situation is very much the reverse with solicitors dominating the property market but over much of the country it’s suggested that estate agents are marketing the higher priced properties.”
The OEA scheme is funded solely by estate agents but operated entirely separately from them under a governing council chaired by Lord Borrie, who served as Director General of fair Trading under successive Labour and Conservative governments.
