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Money Box: Concern over quick sale estate agents

25/01/2020

Concern over quick sale estate agents

BBC Radio 4 - Money Box, Concern over quick sale estate agents

Trading Standards warns over quick sale estate agents

Quick sale estate agents, more students being incorrectly charged council tax and appealing a parking charge notice.

Home owners are at risk of losing large amounts of money when selling their properties by using so called quick sale estate agents. That’s a warning from Trading Standards. It’s told Money Box it’s seen dozens of examples of people losing tens of thousands of pounds from the market value of their homes when agents exploit people who are desperate to sell quickly. 

In the first half of last year private parking firms requested 4.32m driver details from the DVLA so they could issue fines to motorists. This number of demands is 25% up on 2018 which was itself a fifth higher than 2017. We get many emails to moneybox@bbc.co.uk from listeners asking what they should do when they think they have been sent a demand which they believe is unfair. We speak to parking expert John Wilkie to find out.

A Money Box investigation has found that councils around the country are charging students Council Tax over the summer holidays when they should be exempt.  Last week we heard from a student at Durham University who'd been sent a bill for hundreds of pounds. After the programme we were contacted by students from Oxford, Norwich, Salford, and Chester who had a similar story.  Student bodies are now calling on the government to address the issue with local authorities to ensure that students aren’t forced to pay Council Tax.

Presenter: Paul Lewis
Reporter: Dan Whitworth
Researcher: Darin Graham
Producer: Dan Whitworth/Alex Lewis
Editor: Emma Rippon

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