Your front page article about a £100 million wipe-out in the Sussex property market based on a comment attributed to a spokesman for the Ombudsman for Estate Agents (OEA) in your issue of January 24 has caused some alarm, not least in the offices of the OEA.
Your newspaper has mistaken or misunderstood what OEA board chairman Bill McClintock said. The OEA deals with the resolution of disputes between member agents and their clients but has no interest professionally in property values and it would not be our role to comment on the state of the market financially.
The £100 million wipe-out is a fanciful notion and also a meaningless figure.
It would be impossible to instantaneously quantify how much the Sussex property market was worth on any particular day, even less how much would be wiped off it.
Bill McClintock is a much respected figure in the British property industry with vast experience of estate agency and is not given to making rash statements on such matters.
- Maurice Hardy, public relations manager, Ombudsman for Estate Agents Ltd
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article