By Tony Booth

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is challenging London-based estate agents Foxtons over what it considers to be unfair letting terms for landlords. What are the implications for UK landlords.

If the OFT is successful, there could be wide ranging repercussions for other letting and managing agents throughout the UK, who will no longer have free reign to charge punitive forms of commission on buy-to-let landlords.

The OFT's challenge is a test-case, which the watchdog has issued through the High Court under the same regulations that were applied in the recent and highly publicised bank charges reclaim dispute.

Foxtons is renowned for its fleet of Minis, café-style agency offices on the high street and imaginative marketing strategy and sales techniques.