Consumers: make a complaint or report a property agent
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:
If a business doesn’t comply with the law, they can be banned from doing property sales work.
Read our definition of terms for sales (pdf, 622KB) (opens new window)
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:
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.
Read our guidance to redress for leasehold matters. (pdf, 878KB) (opens new window)
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
We won’t use your details unless you agree that we can.