No quick property fixesSellers are being urged to watch for price-fixing among estate agents. The call, from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), comes after three Berkshire estate agents were fined more than £605,000 for fixing their rate of commission. Michael Hardy, Prospect and Richard Worth were fined in December, while a fourth agency, Romans, was let off because it blew the whistle on the deal, which ran from 2008 to 2015 on sales in Wokingham, Warfield, Winnersh, Crowthorne and Bracknell. In 2015 three companies, including Hamptons International, were fined a total of £735,000 for fixing fees in Fleet, Hampshire, while in 2017 four agencies in Somerset had to pay more than £370,000. “This kind of behaviour will not be tolerated,” says Michael Grenfell, the…

Source: The Times January 10, 2020 00:03 UTC