The National Trading Standards Estate Agency Team has banned a sales agent, Callum McCarthy, from the estate agency industry.
A spokesperson said: “We can confirm that Callum McCarthy has been issued with a prohibition order that prevents him from carrying out estate agency work.
“We received information that a company called Elliotts Estate Agents Ltd, which Mr McCarthy was a director of, was not registered with a redress scheme. This was investigated and the company was issued with a £1,000 fixed penalty notice.
“However, the penalty notice was not paid so the team started prohibition / warning proceedings. As proceedings were progressing, the company went into liquidation.
“Proceedings continued and the case was presented to an adjudicator. Mr McCarthy was provided with the opportunity to make direct representations to the adjudicator but did not do so.
“The adjudicator took the decision that Mr McCarthy was unfit to engage in estate agency work. Mr McCarthy was issued with a prohibition order and this has now been added to the public register of prohibited or warned estate agents.”
Elliotts, in Portswood, Southampton, was reported by the local newspaper to be boarded up in January. The Southern Daily Echo reported that it was due to a difference of opinion with McCarthy’s former business partner.
Elliotts is said to have been a source of housing for many students in the Southampton area.
According to both the newspaper report and McCarthy’s own Linked In profile, he is now a director of Regents Estate Agents in London Road, Southampton.
Yesterday, Regents had 105 rental properties listed on Rightmove, but no properties for sale.
Agents can be banned from estate agency work but an anomaly in the law means that an agent banned from sales can still work perfectly legally in lettings.
A banning mechanism for letting agents is, however, being introduced for the first time by the Housing and Planning Bill currently going through Parliament.
The banning of McCarthy, below, is the first action that the industry regulator has taken since the case of Tim Glasson on April 27. This case is said to be subject to appeal.
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