Guidance for enforcement of sales and letting businesses

Documents to help officers with the enforcement of estate and letting agents

Estate Agencies enforcement

Our Trading Standards Estate Agency Compliance Toolkit has information to help with local compliance work.

It includes:

best practice
example letters
scenarios for enforcers

To access the toolkit contact us with your email address and we'll send you log in details for our khub site.

Letting agencies enforcement

Our Introduction to the NTS Estate & Letting Agency Team (word doc, 623KB) (opens new window) provides basic background information on the requirements of lettings legislation enforcement in England and the resources available to assist enforcement officers.

The Tenant Fees Act

The Tenant Fees Act came into force on 1 June 2019. It explains the amount of fees which can be charged to a tenant.

We have a toolkit to help you understand the Tenant Fees Act. To access the toolkit contact us with your email address and we'll send you log in details for our khub site.

Enforcement Policy in relation to relevant letting agency legislation

As the lead enforcement agency for the Tenant Fees Act, Bristol City Council has adopted the following policy for financial penalties under the Tenant Fees Act.

Tenant Fees Act financial penalties policy (pdf, 796KB) (opens new window)

We’re publishing this policy as the national approach, to help promote consistency among enforcement authorities.

Other enforcement authorities may have different priorities and may choose to deviate from this national approach. Before you adopt a different financial penalty notice policy you should:

consider your local authority’s constitution
get advice from legal services

Notice of intent

You can use a notice of intent to tell a trader that they’ll receive a fixed penalty notice if they don’t comply with the law.