Robert Jenrick MP, the Housing Secretary, is to lay down amendments to the The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020 in parliament tomorrow morning and these will take effect from 9.30 am Wednesday (13th May 2020) and will remove the previous restrictions on estate agency work.
This means that valuation visits, face to face viewings and all other estate agency activity can immediately resume.
Of course, social distancing will have to be observed and we understand that the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) has worked with government to put forward proposals as to how agents will deal with the issue of PPE, sanitisation of properties between viewings and so on.
Some may wonder why estate agents have been given the green light so swiftly when Prime Minister Boris Johnson only began to ease the lockdown very slowly on Sunday evening. Why is estate agency so important?
“The wider economy is heavily influenced by house prices and owners’ sentiment over the value of equity in their home”, says our property expert Russell Quirk. “Estate agents are the engine that drive property market activity and are therefore key to the market and the wider economy. And so it should be no surprise that the Secretary of State has put the sector back to work immediately” he adds.
