Thousands of agents are still failing to comply with material information, new research suggests.

More than 133,000 homes on the housing market have been listed without providing complete material information, despite the requirements from the National Trading Standards and the widespread benefits that come with providing buyers with the information they require.

Over recent years, great efforts have been made to improve the disclosure of material information in property listings, and this information has been split into three categories:

Part A – Information which is considered essential for all properties, e.g. price.

Part B – Information that must be established for all properties, e.g. parking availability.

Part C – Information that may or may not need to be established, e.g. flood risk.

Not only does material information vastly reduce the time it takes to sell a property, but it is also designed to help estate and lettings agents comply with Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations (CPRs), prevent failed transactions or wasted costs, prevent unnecessary viewings, and so on.

Moverly, which carried out the analysis, has taken two key areas of material information – Tenure Information from Part A and Parking Information from Part B – and analysed all current residential listings in Great Britain to see how many of them are being marketed with the material information included.

The research reveals that thousands of agents up and down Great Britain are still failing to comply with material information guidelines.

Part A – Tenure information

Tenure Information – which includes information such as whether a property is being sold as a leasehold or freehold – is a core component of Material Information Part A,  but Moverly’s analysis reveals that only 96% of the estimated 523,257 properties currently listed in Britain are being marketed with tenure information included, leaving 4% that are not. This is the equivalent of over 20,700 properties nationwide.

Furthermore, in three of Britain’s 14 major cities there are an even larger percentage of current listings that fail to provide tenure information. In Edinburgh, 12% of listings lack the relevant data, followed by Glasgow (10%), and Newcastle (7%).

Part B – Parking information

The number of non-compliant listings grows even larger when looking at parking information as stipulated by material information Part B.

In Britain, only 75% of live listings include information about car parking, leaving 25% that do not,

This 25% is equivalent to an estimated 133,161 properties that are not compliant with material information Part B.

In Glasgow, the number of non-compliant listings grows to 36%, while in Newcastle, 31% of listings are lacking the relevant information.

Gemma Young, Moverly CEO, said: “This research gives a flavour of how many properties are still being listed without proper compliance with Trading Standards material information guidelines. The level of non-compliance we’re seeing from these two categories alone suggests that too many agents still aren’t taking material information as seriously as perhaps they should.

“While almost all listings are being provided with important information such as price and physical characteristics, it’s concerning to know that thousands of buyers – in some cases hundreds of thousands – are still not being given the level of detailed information they require to make an informed decision in a timely manner.

“What’s more, the figures laid out here don’t even delve into Part C of material information which concerns major issues that can impact the desirability of certain homes, including flood and erosion risk. And while these issues don’t concern all homes, given the seriousness of them, Part C is, to certain buyers, perhaps the most important aspect of all material information. Compliance data in this area is hard to come by for now, but if we’re seeing such widespread non-compliance with Parts A and B, we fear Part C is being neglected even more, especially given that it’s the most newly introduced, and most contentious, part of the guidelines.

“It’s fair to say that everyone involved with property transactions wants to see sales progress with the maximum possible efficiency, but until we start seeing a stronger buy-in to material information provision, too many easy wins are being passed up.”