Consumers: make a complaint or report a property agent

What to do if you need to make a complaint or report an estate or letting agent

What a property agent is

A property agent includes:

• Estate agents
• Letting agents

Property agencies have to comply with certain legislation such as:

• Estate Agents Act 
• Tenants Fees Act

If a business doesn’t comply with the law, they can be banned from doing property sales work.

Make a complaint

If you want to make a complaint about a property agent you should contact them first. They should have their own complaints system to deal with your issue.

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)

If you need to resolve a dispute between you and a property agent, you could use Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).

This is a way of resolving disputes that doesn’t involve going to court, such as mediation.

• England and Wales: Alternative dispute resolution for consumers
• Scotland: Using Alternative Dispute Resolution to solve your consumer problem
• Northern Ireland: Alternatives to going to court

Make a complaint to the redress scheme

If your complaint isn’t resolved, you can contact one of the two redress schemes for property agents:

• Property Redress Scheme
• The Property Ombudsman

You can find out which scheme your property agent belongs to by searching for them on these websites.

All property agents who deal with residential property must belong to one of these schemes. 

Report a property agent to National Trading Standards

We welcome and use all information given to us about trading practices in the estate and letting agency industry.

However, we don’t:

• give consumer advice about individual cases: you’ll need to contact Citizen's Advice 
• get involved with disputes or complaints against businesses

Contact us

We won’t use your details unless you agree that we can.