A new ombudsman service for estate agents is being launched on Tuesday.

One already exists for users of the big chains - this one, supported by the Office of Fair Trading, will be available to any independent agents that belong to one of the professional bodies.

Whether it succeeds depends on how many agencies sign up for the service - 1,200 are expected to when it launches - and whether house buyers and sellers begin to avoid agencies which are not members.

The launch of the new service comes in the wake of a government task force which is examining the home-buying process.

Building activity, while at a six-year high, is also seeing its growth drop. In the last three months of 1997 the rate of increase was 2.3%, according to the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and most of the extra activity was from building shops, offices and leisure developments, not new homes.
 

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