Spicerhaart has landed in hot water with the advertising watchdog after one of its branches made claims about the prices achieved for homes.

It is the latest in a string of around a dozen complaints that have been upheld since 2009.

The adjudication revolved around a branch in Norfolk which marketed homes within a price range – giving a differential.

A competitor, Hammondlee, complained about claims made by the haart branch in Dereham in a leaflet and on Rightmove.

The leaflet said: “If your agent isn’t marketing your house properly they won’t get you the best price … haart Estate Agents of Dereham achieved an average of 100% of our asking prices in the last 3 months *Data source – Spicerhaart YOY Market Movement Analysis 2013.”

Claims on Rightmove stated: “The facts speak for themselves … It’s a sellers market … +1138 We have hundreds of people on our books looking for houses in our area*… 99.80% of asking prices achieved on properties we have sold in the last 3 months*.” The asterisks linked to smaller print stating “*Source: spicerhaart data in house Dec 2013.”

Hammondlee challenged whether haart’s Dereham branch could substantiate that it had achieved an average of 100% of asking prices in the last three months, as per the leaflet, and whether 99.80% of asking prices had been achieved in the same time frame, as per Rightmove.

Spicerhaart, haart’s parent company, sent data from the Dereham branch which, it said, showed that the average sales price achieved was 100.62%.

In both cases, where the market price was a range between two figures, it had used a lower figure as the basis of its claims.

However, the Advertising Standards Authority upheld the challenges.

It said that if a consumer was selling their house, they would want to achieve the higher price in the range.

The ASA said: “We considered that the text contributed to the impression that the houses were being sold at the best market price. Because we considered that the evidence was not adequate to support the impression that single asking prices had been achieved for the percentage of sales stated, we concluded the ad was misleading.”

Spicerhaart has been told not to use the adverts again.

The Dereham branch does advertise properties within a price range, which can appear quite wide. For example, yesterday on Twitter, it gave a guide price of £130,000 to £160,000 on an end of terrace home that it has on its books: fb.me/6Qdp7xrmJ