Solicitors have expressed disappointment that the Office of Fair Trading did not propose the regulation of estate agents in its home buying and selling report published last week.

Despite representations made by many in the industry, including the Law Society, the OFT concluded there was ‘not a strong case’ for introducing a dedicated regulatory regime for estate agents.

It said the current regime has a wide range of sanctions that can be imposed for misconduct by estate agents to ensure consumers are protected, and further regulation is unnecessary.

Instead, the OFT recommend improving the enforcement of existing rules and amending legislation from 1979 to allow new entrants, such as private seller platforms, to enter the market without being hindered by inappropriate regulation.

Overall, the year-long study found the housing market was dominated by traditional high street estate agents, which has led to weak competition. Failure by consumers to negotiate on their fees could have cost them up to £570m.

Commenting on the report Paul Marsh, Law Society property spokesman, said: ‘We’d have liked to see them recommend that regulation of estate agents was put in place to create a level playing field with solicitors, who are very heavily regulated.’

The Law Society wanted to see regulation governing the general conduct of estate agents, and in particular on the issue of referral fees.

Marsh said the lack of regulation was preventing entrepreneurial solicitors looking at ways in which they might do business more closely with estate agents following the Legal Services Act 2007.

At present, he said, the disparity in regulation between solicitors and estate agents makes it hard to combine the two businesses.

Richard Barnett, chairman of the Law Society’s conveyancing and land law committee, said it was unfortunate that the OFT had not recommended regulation of estate agents.

‘I’d like to see agents take the bull by the horns and introduce some form of a self-regulatory scheme,’ he said. He suggested that estate agents should introduce approved schemes whereby they sign up to say they will comply with the same rules as solicitors.

‘The sanction for failing to comply would be that our regulator would ban them from sending referrals to solicitors,’ he said.

Barnett said: ‘There’s no reason why the good estate agents wouldn’t sign up to an enhanced standard to differentiate themselves from the bad agents.’

Peter Bolton King, chief executive of the National Association of Estate Agents, added: ‘Once again the OFT has categorically failed to see that better regulation of the home buying and selling market is required… it is disappointing that the OFT has not thought it appropriate to acknowledge that a robust and appropriate level of consumer protection is needed.’

‘The NAEA would like to see a greater level of regulation to ensure that professional, qualified estate agents are not confused with agents that, all too often, fail to meet the basic professional standards we would expect from our members,’ he said.