An agency that sells property needs an Estate Agents Act client account and an annual audit.
A sales agency is governed by the Estate Agents Act 1979 and the Estate Agents (Accounts) Regulations 1981. Every requirement applies whatever the amount of money held.
The client account auditClients’ money is held on trust for the person entitled to it, including money held as stakeholder, such as a pre-contract deposit.
Paid into a client account without delay, with the word “client” in the account title.
Amount, payer, capacity, the interest in land and the person it is held for, tracked separately by property.
Records kept for six years from the end of the accounting period.
Accounts audited by a qualified auditor within six months of the period end.
Breach is a summary offence with a fine up to level 4, including failing to produce the auditor’s report on demand.
Prohibition orders bar unfit people from estate agency work; warning orders come first. A failure to account for interest counts under s.15(5).
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 replaced the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations on 6 April 2025. Section 230 requires material information in a listing to be given clearly and in time. Drip pricing and fake reviews are prohibited.
The CMA can now fine directly, up to £300,000 or 10% of worldwide turnover if higher. National Trading Standards’ material information guidance sets the standard for listings in three parts:
Client account bookkeeping to the reg 6(3) standard, a three-way reconciliation every month, and all the preparation for the regulation 8(1) audit. Anstey Bond LLP, a registered audit firm, signs the report.
Then the annual accounts, corporation tax or the partnership return, VAT, payroll, and management figures that show commission by negotiator and by branch.
Client account bookkeeping and the monthly three-way reconciliation. The records reg 6(3) prescribes — payer, capacity held, the interest in land, tracked separately by property. The agency's annual accounts, corporation tax or partnership return, payroll, VAT and the management figures you run the business on. All the preparation that decides whether the report comes back clean.
Buzz Accounting Ltd is licensed by the AAT and a member of the ICPA. It is not a chartered accountancy firm and not a registered auditor.
Colin Ellis, ICAEW and a Responsible Individual, audits the client account and signs the report. Regulation 8(1) of the Estate Agents (Accounts) Regulations 1981 requires a qualified auditor, and EAA 1979 s.14(6)–(7) defines that as someone eligible for appointment as a statutory auditor under the Companies Act 2006. Propertymark says the same thing for its own Accountant’s Report, citing Companies Act 2006 s.1239.
Anstey Bond LLP is a separate firm, registered for audit by the ICAEW. Companies House OC360626.
Almost certainly not, and the saving is a legitimate one. The Client Money Protection Regulations 2019 attach to English letting agency work and English property management work, taking their meaning from sections 54 and 55 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016. Sales are neither. MHCLG's statutory guidance confirms the boundary: client money protection applies to tenancies and grants of licence of less than 21 years, and activities associated with lettings of 21 years or over fall outside its scope. What you are in instead is the Estate Agents Act regime, which is older, stricter in some respects, and carries an annual audit the CMP regime does not.
Yes, and this is where sales-only agencies most often assume they are outside the regime. Section 13 covers clients' money received in the course of estate agency work, including money received as stakeholder — a pre-contract deposit or reservation fee held pending exchange is exactly that. Section 14(1) then requires it to be paid into a client account without delay, and the whole records-and-audit apparatus follows. The amount does not matter. There is no de minimis in s.14, and an agency holding a handful of reservation fees at any one time is in the same regime as one holding six figures.
That depends on the state of the records. The auditor is reporting under reg 8(3) on whether the Act's requirements about how clients' money is dealt with, and the Regulations, have been complied with. In practice that means testing that money went into the client account without delay, that nothing else was in there beyond what reg 4 permits, that the reg 6(3) records identify the payer, the capacity, the interest in land and the person entitled, and that the account reconciles. Where the records are maintained monthly this is a short exercise. Where they are reconstructed at year end from bank statements it is not, and it tends not to produce a clean opinion.
No. They are separate obligations under separate instruments. Redress for residential estate agency work comes from the Estate Agents (Redress Scheme) Order 2008, in force 1 October 2008 under EAA 1979 s.23A, and it applies UK-wide: every person who engages in relevant estate agency work must belong to an approved redress scheme. Client money protection comes from the 2019 Regulations and applies to lettings in England. You can need one and not the other. The penalty routes differ too — up to £1,000 by penalty charge notice under s.23B and Schedule 4 for the estate agency redress breach, against £30,000 for the CMP one.
On the event your terms of business say creates the liability, which the law already requires you to state. Section 18 of the Estate Agents Act requires you, before the client is committed, to give particulars of the circumstances in which they will become liable to pay remuneration and particulars of the amount or how it will be calculated — with the form prescribed by the Estate Agents (Provision of Information) Regulations 1991. Failing to do so makes the contract unenforceable except by order of the court, and the court may dismiss the claim or reduce the sum. So the recognition point is not a matter of accounting preference: sole agency with commission due on completion recognises on completion; commission earned on exchange recognises on exchange.
We start by establishing which regime you are in.