§ Sir Geoffrey FinsbergTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will make a statement of the666W implications for policy on estate agents boards of the judgment delivered in the House of Lords on 1 December in the case of Porter v. Honey.
§ Mr. HowardTheir Lordships were invited to answer the following certified question
If an estate agent, instructed to sell or let a residential property, displays a board outside the property no other being at that time displayed, does he commit an offence if another agent (to his knowledge or without it) thereafter displays a second?Their answer was unanimously in the negative and the appeal by Mr. A. H. Porter, against judgment given in the Divisional Court on 30 March, was allowed.I welcome this judgment and their Lordships' view, expressed by Lord Griffiths, that they were,
unable to impute to the Secretary of State or Parliament the intention that an estate agent in the position of the appellant should be held guilty of a criminal offence".I hope that all estate agents and vendors will observe the rule that only one advertising board is displayed on any premises for sale or letting, so that the question of prosecution for displaying a second or subsequent boards does not arise.