Official new advice was issued this week on the Government website about estate agents who receive a ban or warning order, and how they can appeal.

It is not clear why HM Courts and Tribunals Service has issued the advice about the right to appeal, which is enshrined in the Estate Agents Act 1979, or why it has done so now.

Only two cases are attached to the advice as having gone to appeal, the last in 2010. However, both are interesting, and if you are casting around for some training material, they offer up a number of different points for discussion.

The 2010 case revolved around estate agent Kevin Allsop with criminal convictions who set up a business called www.homesRUs.co.uk

On that occasion, the then Office of Fair Trading won its case for the striking out of the notice of appeal, lodged in 2009.

The second case dates back to 2009 when Wolfgang David Dunn appealed against his prohibition, which revolved around whether offers had been passed on to a seller.

The firm he worked for, Astons in Southampton, was also not a member of a redress scheme – as became mandatory for estate agents in 2008.

The ban was said at the time in the Daily Echo local paper on September 26, 2009 – “to be the first in the country for refusing to sign up to a mandatory watchdog scheme”.

The paper said: “They had already been fined £1,000 by Southampton’s trading standards for failing to join a redress scheme, but the case was then referred to the OFT when the company still rejected orders to sign up.”

The paper also reported that Astons would be appealing against the ban, which had forced them to shut up shop, but that the OFT said the appeal deadline had passed and the banning order stood.

Mr Dunn’s application, for an extension to the time limit in which he could appeal, was also dismissed.

The judge noted that he was the “author of his own misfortune”and said: “I recognise the acute difficulties that Mr Dunn now faces as a result of his being unable to practise his chosen profession. My conclusion is that he is himself responsible for this state of affairs.”