Friday, 29th January 2010
HOUSE for Sale signs have been banned in west London after estate agents were caught breaking the law by sticking up massive boards.
"If we see a board and it is too big, then that constitutes a criminal act," Ryan Kristiansen, planning enforcement officer at Hammersmith and Fulham council, told Property Week.
The council gives estate agents a few days to take down signs that break the law and, if house-sellers don't play ball, out comes a £2,500 fine, plus £250 a day for each day the offending board stays put.
According to the law, boards can be 24 inches by 32 inches (about half a square metre), but plenty exceed this limit as they compete for attention.
While residents might be thankful that at last someone has taken an axe to the boards that disfigure many a London street, local estate agents aren't too pleased, though they admit they know they have been breaking the law.
"We knew that some of the boards were not regulation size," said Mark Belsham, of Hargreaves Newberry Gyngell, "but the council never normally follows them up."
Other estate agents in the area point to the money they've had to spend on complying with the law.
"There are costs being incurred in paying for the fines and having the signs taken down," said Nick Raven of Strutt & Parker.
You can feel Raven's pain. The last two years has been tough for estate agents, with mass redundancies, lower commissions and lower wages.
But, as revealed this week, Foxtons boss Michael Brown pulls in £650,000 a year. You can buy something like 130,000 regulation size For Sale signs for that.
I think too many signs on a street can look unsightly, the legal limit is there for a reason.
J.
how can they do that?
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