What's the story with gazumping?: It's reassuring to know that as a consumer you have considerable protection - most of the time. When it comes to the most difficult transactions, however, the safety net all but disappears, which helps make house buying, along with divorce and death, one of life's most stressful events, writes Conor Pope.

In the current climate, it's the seller who has all the cards and few people under 40 remember a time when it was any different. Until the contracts are signed by both parties - which can be months after a sale is agreed thanks to our muddled conveyancing system - sellers can change their mind and take the property off the market or they can accept an offer but keep an eye out for a higher one. And there is little the buyer can do about it.

In other areas, obscure fees, false advertising, misleading prices and dodgy deals are punishable by law and those accused of such behaviour are held to account by the regulatory bodies. Policing property deals is, however, more problematic and the absence of protection has led to charges of sharp practice being laid at the door of the some of the professional groups working in the area, with estate agents taking most of the flak.

The touchstone issue is the ugly business of gazumping, where the seller reneges on the sale agreement to sell at a higher price to someone else. It has its origins in the Yiddish word gazumph, meaning to swindle or overcharge, and moved into property parlance via 1920s gangster slang. Although gazumping is effectively outlawed in many countries, in the Republic a seller can receive every offer until both parties have signed contracts. If an estate agent fails to make a higher offer known to a seller, he could be sued later. Many estate agents will discourage bids once a sale is agreed but others are certainly guilty of seeking them out.

"In the current market houses sell houses; estate agents just open doors and that's when they bother to show up on time," one mortgage broker told PriceWatch. "While gazumping happens, it isn't as commonplace as you might think. There is a surprisingly high level of honour out there."

Alan Cooke, CEO of the Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institute (IAVI), disagrees. He says gazumping is a problem and one which will not go away until the Government makes legislative changes. It is not, however the profession that is at fault, he says. "Estate agents don't gazump - sellers gazump."

He points out that estate agents can switch signs to "sale agreed" and decline to accept further bids but they remain subject to the overriding wishes of the seller who is legally entitled to receive offers until contracts have been exchanged and signed. According to Cooke, 95 per cent of sellers will gazump if given the opportunity. "They will complain if it is done to them but they will do it if given the chance. It is hypocritical. We take the flak as the public face of the seller. If you want estate agents to act differently then change the law."

Estate agents also come under fire when it comes to pricing. Many have dropped the discredited guide price system in favour of Advised Minimum Values (AMVs) given as their true opinion of the value of a property. Within weeks, AMVs seemed as misleading as their predecessors. Recently a house in Dublin's Sandymount sold at auction for €2 million - €500,000 more than its AVM. Another semi-d in Ballsbridge went under the hammer for €7 million - €2 million over the estate agent's estimate.

Cooke accepts that the huge gaps exist. "Money has totally lost its value. I defy anyone to accurately predict the prices houses will fetch in the current climate. Sellers are not responsible for the market. Auctioneers are not responsible for the market. Buyers competing with each other are responsible."

There has been some good news for buyers in the form of the independent authority aimed at stamping out unscrupulous practices among estate agents. The establishment of the National Property Services Regulatory Authority was announced last October by Minister for Justice Michael McDowell, following the publication of an expert review group report into the sector which was carried out "against a background of a considerable level of public concern about certain selling practices in the market".

While the authority will be able to impose fines and other sanctions against rogue auctioneers, it is unlikely to outlaw gazumping and will struggle to improve the accuracy of guide prices. The review group said outlawing gazumping would be "unrealistic" and warned that it would be impossible to force auctioneers to give out "honest" guide prices. Cooke was on the review group and the IAVI welcomed its findings. "We want State regulation of the industry. We have been looking for it since 1931," he says.

Another member of the review group, Dermott Jewell, chief executive of the Consumer Association of Ireland (CAI), supports the outlawing of gazumping: "Let's stop it and stop it for everyone." The slow pace of conveyancing is also an issue which needs to be addressed, he says. "Let's speed up the process and make closure a far more reasonable and efficient transaction. We have to try and bring some semblance of reasonable behaviour to the market."

A spokeswoman at the Department of Justice was unable to give a date for the regulator to be in place.