Richard Worth

Richard Worth is a residential estate agent in the Berkshire cartel. Like the other firms, it earns its money when a house sells, taking a percentage agreed at the instruction. The competitive event is that first conversation, when a seller asks what the fee will be and can still walk down the street to someone else.

The CMA found the Berkshire agents coordinated those fees. Richard Worth is one of the firms in the decision, alongside Michael Hardy, Prospect Estate Agency, and Romans. The finding does not depend on the agent being a household name outside the county. Local rivals agreeing a commission are a cartel.

Status is fined. Richard Worth's own penalty, if the decision states one, is not repeated here, and neither is anyone else's. The same silence covers who, if anyone, came forward first. What the profile does say is that sellers faced coordinated commissions.

A sole-agency instruction at an agreed percentage is the contract the cartel standardized.

Richard Worth is a named Berkshire agent, not the trade association and not a property portal.

The CMA's case is about the fee itself, collected from home sellers.

The seller who signed with Richard Worth paid a commission that rivals had discussed.

Estate agency is one of the larger cheques in a house move, so a point of commission is thousands of pounds on an ordinary Berkshire sale.