Consuming Interest

Man's Estate

By LESLIE ADRIAN Deliberate deception is confined to the rackety few on the margin of the profession, though even barefaced fraud is a tough charge to make stick, as the appropriate pages of The Consumer and the Law point out. Once a pur- chase'is completed it is hard to win a case against the golden-tongued scoundrel who inveigled you into buying a rose-covered cottage with wood-worm in the roofbearns and rising damp.

One M achiavellian but perfectly legal device was described to me by a solicitor re- cently, whereby an artful agent can make a juicy profit as well as commission on the sale of a -house belonging to some unsuspecting citizen. The technique is for the estate agent to inspect a property offered to him and, by dep- recating comments on the age, siting and appear- ance of the building, and hints about the run- down neighbourhood, put the seller in a pessi- mistic frame of mind.

In the case I heard about the agent went through the not-much-demand-for-this-type-of- property routine before mentioning a figure which was substantially more than the owner had paid some years ago and £1,000 less than the present market value of the house. After a well-planned interval (long enough for the owner to take the agent's valuation to heart) and one or two abortive visits from disparaging viewers, a prospective purchaser appeared. He made an offer, just slightly more attractive than the estate agent's estimate, which was gladly accepted. A little later, after the exchange of contracts, the vendor heard that hk house had been resold. The 'buyer' had been the estate agent's nominee and the agent was now £1,000 richer.

This sort of cozenage within the law can only be prevented by the discipline of a professional body, but unfortunately anyone can be an estate agent. Qualifications are unnecessary, there is no registration or control and membership of the professional organisations is entirely optional. Even a court sentence for fraudulent property- dealing is no lasting barrier to anyone planning to open up a house agency. He can start work as soon as he has exchanged his prison blues for a business suit.

No one is more worried about the Slippery Sams at the sharp end of the trade than the four pillars of professional integrity a,t the top—the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Chartered Land Agents' Society, the Chartered Auctioneers' and Estate Agents' Institute and the Incorporated Society of Auctioneers and Landed Property Agents. (Some estate correspon- dent paid by the word must have thought up those titles.) They initiated an agitation for com- pulsory registration which now has the support of most reputable agents.

It is the form rather than the fact of registra- tion that is causing controversy. Should it be made illegal for an unregistered estate agent to function as such (as it is for an unregistered solicitor) or should registration be limited to the question of title (like architects and the soon-to- be-registered chiropodists)? if title only is con- trolled, anyone would be able to buy and sell houses on commission, but only the man on the register could actually call himself a registered estate agent. The stricter form would give the public the more effective protection.

In the meantime, if you have a house to sell, go to an agent who is also a qualified surveyor, land agent or auctioneer. If this is not practical, avoid granting sole agency to a firm which is unknown to you—there is safety in numbers in this business. Also, never grant sole right to sell to any agent; you would be depriving yourself of the right to sell your house privately.

Another piece of advice from The Consumer and the Law. Don't sign, at the agent's request, any written form outlining your instructions to him, nor agree to any special terms on which commission is payable, without first taking legal advice. Normally commission is paid only on completion of the sale, but it is not unknown for a vendor to find himself hoodwinked into an agreement to pay commission even if the sale falls through. One case of this sort was fought up to the Court of Appeal last year. The judge found for the vendor.

It is usually unwise for a buyer to accept an agent's recommendation of a surveyor or solicitor. If you need a solicitor, ask the Citizen's Advice Bureau. If you have a solicitor, get him to suggest a surveyor.

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My introduction to what Americans call the household 'pig,' a U-shaped pipe under the sink which grinds up garbage and flushes it away, almost put me off them for life. I had to fetch a friend from a party. and found him waiting for me loaded down with a paper bag full of empty lobster shells—the residue of the evening's din- ner which had been thrust upon him by his hostess. Her 'pig'. she explained, wouldn't take them: so they were being taken to his outdated. occasionally malodorous plastic bin.

But apparently advances have been made since that time, five or six years ago. The Tweeny Waste Disposal Unit, its salesmen assure me, can digest anything from dead flowers and news- papers to nut shells, apple cores and pineapple husks—any food in fact. The conception is so simple that one wonders why the suppurating bins in those depressing areas haven't long since become obsolete—as presumably, they have, in some new blocks of flats. Only lack of knowledge of them and, naturally, expense prevent their installation in older buildings.

The only drawback to the units is their noise. When the unit is switched on by twisting a knob over the sink, the resultant electric whirring and grinding can sound like and feels like a ship's boiler-room: there is a house-wide throbbing. However, this seems a small enough discomfort.

The Tweeny units, and the `Wastemaster' made by the Kenwood Group, are,on sale and display at the big department stores; Robinson's, Harrods, Selfridges. Installation has to be under- taken by a plumber—an added expense of any- where from £4 to £6, depending on the drains. One to two units of electricity are needed each week to run them.

The Consumer Advisory Council is helping the Registrar of the Restrictive Practices Court to collect information about domestic electrical contracting work. This is because the agreement of the National Federated Electrical Association, which recommends the margins that electrical contractors add to their costs, has been referred to the court. Readers of this column who have had wiring replacements or extensions dOne could help CAC to supply evidence by sending details of the type of work, whether estimates were given in advance and the basis on which the work was priced (fixed for the whole job, based on time, on materials, etc.) to Orchard House, Orchard Street, London, WI.

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A friend tells me that he has been let down by a girl—the one with the golden voice who answers to the initials TIM. The other night he checked his watch by TIM, and found it was ten minutes fast. He reset the watch and went to bed. In the morning, to make sure, he checked with TIM again. His watch was now ten minutes slow. In- credulous (it is a good watch), he rang the GPO and complained. At first the official was adamant. The device, albeit thirty years old, was electronic and therefore infallible. Pressed, he asked if my friend had been worried by a ten-minute dis- crepancy. Yes, he was told. Ah, came the answer, that's not a fault in the timing device, it's the recordings. They are so old that fungal attack has rendered some of the sound-tracks ambiguous, so that 'thirty' is apt to sound like 'forty' over a

cat

te unl ntY less than perfect line. No, there are no plans new recordings. The young lady who made tt originally is not available now (chivalrous, a and the GPO have not yet sought for a substit I dialled TIM and listened several times. Yo lady? She sounds like a dear old thing of seve