The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) has warned that the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) must only approve one consumer redress scheme to monitor the industry or risk making the system confusing.

Peter Bolton King, the chief executive of the NAEA, told the Daily Express, that while efforts must be made to "prevent bad practice from happening in the first instance", the new redress scheme should be kept simple.

"This whole overhaul of the estate agent industry will be muddled if several schemes are approved, ¬making it very difficult for us to offer simple consumer advice."

Previously, consumer group Which? has called for only one redress scheme to be established, with spokesman Mark McLaren commenting: "It is essential that the OFT only approves a single scheme that all estate agents must join to avoid customer confusion."

Earlier this month, the OFT issued a list of criteria any organisation seeking to manage a scheme must meet in order to win approval, including mandatory performance monitoring, transparency and independence from the estate agency sector.