Housing Secretary Angela Rayner has accused “unqualified, unlicensed and unregulated agents” of taking “thousands” from customers.

Rayner – who received £20,000 for a two hour contribution to an event staged over the summer by agents’ trade body Propertymark – made the comments at the Labour conference.

She told delegated that unregulated agents are “mishandling their money with no transparency or accountability”.

She added: “We will legislate for an independent regulation to rein these cowboys in. They’ll be required to follow the rules. And if they don’t, their licences will be taken away.”

Her comments follow an announcement by her department, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), that it intends to introduce independent regulation of property agents.

The announcement says: “A regulator can set codes of practice, such as standards of conduct and proper complaint handling for those they regulate.  

“Property agents will be required to obtain a license to do the job, as well as appropriate qualifications to operate. If they fall foul of the required standards, the regulator would have the power to take their licenses away.  

“These measures will fundamentally rewire homeownership, whilst supporting over five million existing leaseholders and future homeowners, who will benefit from stronger control, powers and protections. 

“The government is committed to bringing forward these changes as soon as possible and will set out more information in due course.”

In addition, the MHCLG says it is going to continue with its leasehold reforms, commenting: “Under the current system, leaseholders and those living on freehold estates can be forced to pay fees in order to receive their landlord’s permission for simple requests like keeping a pet – with no certainty of the costs and no clear oversight of the process.    

“The government will legislate to give the Secretary of State powers to introduce caps on these fees that are genuinely reasonable and that landlords must follow.    

“These powers will also cover privately managed estates where homeowners can face similar charges for minor cosmetic changes to their properties.   

“As well as permission fees, the legislative changes will enable a clamp down on administrative fees, where landlords can charge for providing documents on request, like building safety certificates, or even for simply notifying them of a change in mortgage provider. 

“A public consultation will be launched on the scope of what should be capped and the amount for each item.”