The UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT ) has used its power to issue a prohibition order against an East Yorkshire estate agent banning him from engaging in estate agency work.
As part of its role the OFT can bar from estate agency work a person who has committed certain specified offences such as fraud, or other dishonesty or violence; or who has committed racial or sexual discrimination in the course of estate agency work; or who has failed to comply with the requirements placed on estate agents by the Estate Agents Act and is unfit to carry on estate agency work.
Mark Frederick Howe, of Beech and Howe Estate Agency, in Driffield, East Yorkshire, has been banned after convictions for offences involving fraud and dishonesty.
Mark Frederick Howe, of Beech and Howe Estate Agency, in Driffield, East Yorkshire, has been banned after convictions for offences involving fraud and dishonesty.
Howe, 43, was sentenced to ten years imprisonment at Leeds Crown Court on 31 October 2008 on 13 counts of theft, procuring execution of a valuable security by deception, obtaining property by deception, and three counts of obtaining a money transfer by deception.
Mike Haley, OFT Director of Consumer Protection, said:
‘The seriousness of the offences in this case demonstrates a clear unfitness to engage in estate agency work. We will take action to ban estate agents in any case where they have committed serious offences including fraud or other dishonesty.’
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