Local Estate Agent Fined for Too Many For Sale Signs

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Agent with Ravenscourt Residential pleads guilty

A local estate agent has been fined for putting up too many For Sale signs on one property.

David Sharron, of Ravenscourt Residential, on Seven Stars Corner in Shepherd's Bush, erected two large boards to sell one house in Cardross Street in the Bradmore conservation area.

By law, estate agents are only allowed to put up one double-sided sign per property and Hammersmith and Fulham Council has already banned boards in eight conservation areas.

Sharron pleaded guilty at West London Magistrates Court on June 22, and was fined £100 and ordered to pay £250 in costs to the council, as well as a £15 victim surcharge.

Cllr Nicholas Botterill, cabinet member for environment, says: "Having this many boards on one property was just excessive and completely unnecessary.

" We want our local businesses to do well but not at the expense of residents, who have to put up with a forests of boards that ruin our streets."

The council says it is continuing to crack down on estate agents' boards across the borough, most recently in the conservation area around Harwood Road in Fulham, where agents putting up unauthorised signs receive written warnings that they will be prosecuted unless they are removed.

Meanwhile a successful ban on For Sale signs in two conservation areas, Barons Court and Sinclair Road is set to be extended to conservation areas in Walham Green, Parsons Green and Moore Park in Fulham plus Hammersmith Grove, Olympia and Avonmore, Gunter Estate.

According to strict advertising laws, currently boards can only be displayed where a property is for sale or for rent, and must then be removed within 14 days of the house or flat being sold or let.

If you would like to report an illegal board email boards@lbhf.gov.uk.

August 3, 2010