Agent who hid criminal past is banned from industry

News Category: Industry News

The OFT has banned a Middlesbrough estate agent after learning that he hid his extensive criminal record, which includes violence.

It has also revoked Peter Hall's credit licence.

Hall can, however, quite legally, be able to carry on being a landlord, and a letting and property-managing agent.

The case looks set to reignite the debate as to whether private landlords and both estate agents and letting agents should be licensed.

Although the OFT has been able to ban Hall under the Estate Agents Act, there is no equivalent legislationgiving the same sanction for letting or managing agents. The law also allows anyone to set up as an estate agent or letting agent. The Coalition Government has made it clear that it will not regulate estate agents and it has decided to drop Labour’s plans to regulate private landlords and letting agents.

The case also begs the question as to what – if any – checks are made on applications for credit licensing. An OFT spokeswoman said it was for applicants to ‘self-disclose’. In contrast, someone who arranges flowers in a church must get a Criminal Records Bureau check.

Hall, who trades in Middlesbrough as Westminster Services, is a private landlord, estate agent and property management agent, who buys, sells and rents out property. In the past, he has offered credit to tenants living in properties he manages.

He obtained a consumer credit licence in September 2007, but failed to declare 23 unspent criminal convictions, including GBH, theft and harassment, in breach of the Consumer Credit Act 1974.

Hall, who currently has an ASBO, is a former boxer who is said to oversee 200 properties. His violent history includes breaking a man’s jaw, assaulting a university student, punching an ex-girlfriend at a funeral wake and assaulting a passing motorist who had refused to give him a lift.

In the application for his ASBO, he was told he was “intimidating” and police spoke of their frustration at lack of action taken against him previously, claiming that victims were too scared to make statements. On the ASBO being granted – it runs until this October and bans him from Middlesbrough town centre between 8pm and 7am – police said it would make it a safer place.

Twelve officers had given evidence that Hall had repeatedly tried to intimidate them.

Hall was due to stand trial last year on charges of kidnap, assault, destroying property and breaching his ASBO, but the case was dropped when two female witnesses failed to show up to give evidence.

The OFT took action this spring after being alerted by the North-East Illegal Money-Lending Team, who are local Trading Standards officers. In March, it issued a ‘minded to revoke’ notice, and in April it obtained an interim order from the High Court preventing Hall from licensable activities pending the outcome of the OFT’s revocation process.

The High Court order also prevented him from engaging in threatening, violent or intimidatory behaviour in connection with his consumer credit or ancillary credit business.

Hall did not challenge the ‘minded to revoke’ notice and the fraudulently obtained licence has now been duly revoked. At the same time, he has been banned from estate agency work – a process also started in March.


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