Agents listing properties with Rightmove are being asked to check that they are displaying the tenure of a property within the field provided on listings for all of their residential properties for sale.
From early July, if the field is not filled in then the listing on Rightmove will instead include a line prompting the home-hunter to ask the agent if the property is freehold or leasehold in England and Wales.
The tenure will display in the usual way if it has been added by the agent in the field provided in their software or when uploading it to Rightmove manually.
The move is to try and ensure listings include tenure in a more consistent way to help home-hunters when searching, and to help educate them about the different types of property tenure available.
Currently 70% of listings already include information in this field.
Rightmove’s Legal and Compliance Director David Cox said: “We’ve had a lot of feedback from users that they want to see tenure information before they view a property.
“The vast majority of agents already display tenure on their listings using the field provided, and so we want to hear from those agents who don’t if there are any challenges in sourcing this information or in providing the data in the field in their software before we introduce the change in two months’ time.”
Comments (21)
Agents should aim to provide as much info as poss
title/ta6/ta7/ta10 all certificates etc
don’t wait for slow sols be proactive!
If buyers had aip and a sol instructed before viewing and a seller had the legal pack agents could knock months off a transaction time
#notrocketsceience
Totally agree
When you buy a leasehold property you do not buy the bricks and mortar, you buy a piece of paper that gives you the right to live for a specified piece of time within bricks and mortar that are owned by someone else, subject to some rules of course.
On that basis, listing a leasehold property for sale without the full details of the lease must (by definition) be a breach of CPR – you are not providing the consumer with materially important information.
BUT…
As all estate agents know – once a potential buyer sees “87 years unexpired” or “£250pa ground rent, increasing every 15 years” and etcetera, they are never going to call you to book an appointment to view it.
Agents who ignore the problem are more likely to get the instruction in the first place.
Viewers get hooked and make an offer because the flat is nice.
Sale agreed and deal with the mess later on… It might fall through the first time, but it seems to be an MO for a lot of agents.
I suggest agents put less information on RM and more comprehensive information on their own websites and drive traffic there instead.
reducing the number of photographs displayed on the portals to 1 with videos, 3D walk-throughs, area films and virtual tours confined to an agent’s own website would satisfy vendor demand that properties are listed on the portals but the eye candy content would be available to the serious applicants interested in buying or renting via the agent.
It is agents’ content that makes the portals a free entertainment channel for dreamers; the digital equivalent of the Kay’s catalogue, that is incredibly important and valuable to the portal; it makes it what it is. What agents need to understand is the value of that content, a great negotiation asset.
I have shown how it is now possible to put all the marketing content an agent has into a complete property file that focuses attention on the individual agent and their listings rather than an aggregating portal.
For those people curious why Michael, Kenny and I are happily collaborating, with my showcase incorporated into their portal, it is because Boomin is the first portal to properly recognise the importance of agents as the paying customer. That is a paradigm shift the other portals cannot ignore. The customer is King/Queen once again.
For all that has gone before what the Bruces are doing with Boomin- giving weight to agents’ needs will put pressure on the others in a awy that has not properly existed for over 10 years.
One image on the portals with the balance of content on our own website, tick.
Working with messrs Bruce, cross.
Sorry Robert, its one thing to be terrified to leave Rightmove as in this business you can go bust in 3 months regardless of past performance and quite another to share a bed with the biatch that cheated on you.
Would you be prepared to treat with them through me? Hopefully I have demonstrated a loyalty to the best interest of the industry for long enough that my judgement and strategy on this is worth some consideration.
Unless you are one of the bottom feeders of the industry; the people you despised most before disruption came along ( I don’t think you are) Purplebricks did you a think about it favour, they were challenging your competition more than they were competing with you.
I’ve not sold my soul or anything like that, I have simple built the system that allows you as agents to treat with suppliers on your terms not theirs. The Bruces are smart enough to know what I have built works for them and the agents they need to attract.
We should talk
Any other entity Robert and the answer would be yes, but in over 30yrs PB stand out as the most cynical, lizard like chancers that I’ve had the misfortune to witness creating misery everywhere they touch.
Don’t get me wrong, if you cant handle competition this industry most certainly isn’t for you as we all look to eat each others lunch, but the Bruce brothers had an understanding of agency through their previous acquisitions and to my mind knew full well that full service agents would pick up the problem solving where they were in a linked chain because if one participant in a chain is stuck nobody gets paid other than PB. I should invoice those two for my time spent ironing out problems for Their clients.
I am ( sadly ) old enough to have competed with Seekers, always gone head to head with cheap fee merchants who look to make a profit through mortgages and ancillary products, I do not hold any contempt for Exp, Strike or Doorsteps as different as those models are.
PB were and are the gold standard of snake oil, public perception of estate agents has always been a running ( not funny ) joke and to do PB’s work for them and then at half time in the football have to watch an ad belittling not only those efforts but also my integrity.
Shame on them.
Nobody likes an estate agent until they need a good one.
The debates about disruption were raging on EAT long before Purplebricks appeared and some of the worse disparaging comment was made there. One of them was going to duff us all in!
Boomin isn’t Purplebricks and the agents most affected by disruption are some of those who need Boomin the most.
How can that be resolved? What assurances do they have to give?
I don’t believe a word they say so any assurances they give are useless.
Do you trust me?
Yep.
But you are not able to control the Bruce Brothers actions.
I really don’t know.
They had editorial choice in how they were to play it, they could of just banged on about how cheap they were and whatever wizz bang widget / booking viewings online at 2.00am etc, but no, it was a surgical strike ( commissary etc ) on the very community of agents that understand we would not necessarily put an opponent out if on fire but also realise that we have to look after each other to get a chain through where we’re all linked, I might suggest ( or vice versa ) a solution to a rival over the road with whom I am fighting elsewhere in the business but collaborative in this part of the business, it’s nuanced.
PB drove a coach and horses through that unwritten norm, if that’s disruption then it’s only distrustfully disruption and just made everything worse.
We should talk, not to sell you on Boomin but to offer a different viewpoint. In my opinion agency has to consider what is least harmful, the past or the future
Tis article is one more indicator of the control and stranglehold RM are gaining over our Industry. Unhealthy. It should not be them telling dictating this to the industry. If it’s considered that important, it should be the country’s law not RM’s.
It is a legal requirement to disclose material information that impacts on the consumers decision making. Material information includes not only tenure, but ground rent terms, length and service charges. The industry is failing and in breach of CPR’s by not doing this.
KjK86, I don’t think that that legal requirement extends to content in adverts does it?
I have recently met with propertymark and Trading standards about this exact issue and yes it does extend to tech portals also.
Clearly self regulation in the industry fails yet again therefore perhaps they will listen when enforcement action is commenced.
property mark – lol
I saw John Paul and Simon Whale debating on Facebook whether individuals can shape or influence the industry as they claim to.
In January 2020 there was a story on here where National Leasehold Campaign (@NLC-2019) were calling for tenure information to be available on portal listings the request was ignored.
Where the trade associations, redress schemes and NTSELAT have been ignoring CPR material information since it replaced PMA in 2008 we have managed to put non compliance at the top of the agenda and this is a victory for Katie, Cath and the campaign they have spearheaded. Well done Katie and Cath
Thankyou Robert. It’s about time they stopped window dressing and just disclosed the product information correctly and honestly. Maybe disclosing the information will mean the property won’t sell and agents won’t get their commissions but hey hoy. Consumers have the legal right to have this information disclosed to them and all agents including portals have a legal obligation under CPR’s to deliver this.
The NLC as you know have met with Trading Standards and Propertymark and they agree.
Change is coming and the industry needs to accept it and improve their practice.