The Property Ombudsman has expelled an estate agent for failing to pay an award to a house seller.

The seller had submitted a complaint to TPO that they were unsatisfied with several areas of service provided by Leftmove Estate Agent Holdings Limited, based in Blackpool and that they did not receive regular marketing updates, offers were not confirmed in writing and they were unhappy with how the agent dealt with these issues being raised.

The seller also complained that the agent did not provide a ‘Terms of Business’ to sign.

The agent said that the terms were agreed by email and over the telephone. However, the TPO says this means the agent failed to comply with their obligations under the Code of Practice. The Ombudsman supported the complaint regarding the failure of Leftmove Estate Agents to provide the sellers with a copy of their ‘Terms of Business’ to physically sign and made an award of £500 in respect of this shortcoming.

The Ombudsman also found that Leftmove Estate Agents had failed to provide regular marketing updates and an award of £100 was made in respect of this complaint. The Ombudsman was, however, satisfied that although not all offers were confirmed in writing, the sellers were verbally informed and so suffered no disadvantage.

Finally, Leftmove Estate Agents failed to address all the issues raised by the sellers in their complaints response for which a further award of £100 was made, bringing the total award owed to the sellers to £700.

The agent is no longer trading.

TPO Finance Committee non-executive director and chairman Gerry Fitzjohn says: “As a member of TPO, agents are obliged to comply with awards made by the Ombudsman, which Leftmove Estate Agents Holdings Limited failed to do. It appears that this agent is no longer trading, which is frustrating for the sellers who are owed outstanding monies.

“We would like to remind consumers to ensure they always use an agent which is a member of a redress scheme (The Property Ombudsman or The Property Redress Scheme).”