In brief

In brief

The office of Fair Trading is delaying the introduction of a compulsory redress scheme for estate agents, raising fears of another Hips-style U-turn.

The Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Act should come into effect on 6 April, making it compulsory for every estate agent to be in an ombudsman-style scheme offering an arbitration service and potential compensation for wronged clients. The OFT and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform have been reviewing four bidders to run the scheme following a tendering process started last October.

But, four weeks before its start date, the OFT says the scheme has been delayed for an unspecified period. A spokesman says the office 'will make an announcement about next steps as soon as possible' without indicating a timescale.

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One bidder is the firm running the current voluntary Ombudsman for Estate Agents scheme, while another is SOS Ltd, which operates redress systems in the energy industry. A third bidder is Independent Dispute Resolution Services, a subsidiary of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and the fourth is the Register of Estate Agents, run by a former estate agent and website operator.

Insiders and consumer watchdogs have been worried about an apparent lack of information about the scheme. 'We've been given no idea about which schemes will be available, how they will run and what they will cost. This leaves room for plenty of confusion,' says Peter Bolton King, chief executive of the National Association of Estate Agents. He believes more than one bidder may be allowed to run a scheme, with agents allowed to choose which they support.

Only 60 per cent of the UK's estimated 30,000 estate agents are in a voluntary ombudsman scheme, despite extensive recruitment campaigns in recent years.

Tesco offers bikers an insurance cost check

Tesco is launching a motorbike insurance comparison site to cater to what it sees as a growing biking community. The site can be accessed from the main Tesco Finance site, tescofinance.com, and compares policies from 300 providers.

According to the supermarket, there were more motorcycle registrations in 2007 than there have been for the past seven years. But Tesco is not the first to offer motorcycle insurance comparisons; competitor Gocompare.com has been offering the service since last year. It says the volume of motorbike insurance searches have already increased by a third and expects to see this figure rise even further during the biker-friendly spring and summer months.