Material Information in Property Listings

This consultation is aimed at estate agents, other property professionals involved in the home buying and selling process and members of the public.

We are seeking views on how government issued guidance can best support estate agents with their legal responsibility to provide potential buyers with relevant information (material information) during residential property transactions.

The consultation also seeks views on how this guidance can improve consumers’ understanding of what they should expect from property professionals, and of the role they themselves play in ensuring key property information is available upfront.

Guidance will be subject to The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA), which protects consumers from unfair trading practices and prohibits traders from omitting (or providing unclear, untimely or obscure) material information to consumers.

The territorial extent of any material information guidance will depend on consultation outcomes and subsequent legislation but, given the DMCCA is UK-wide legislation, we are inviting perspectives from across the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland). 

The home buying and selling process is long, complicated and frustrating for both consumers and property professionals. It takes an average of 120 days to complete once an offer has been accepted,[1] which is 60% longer compared to 2007.[2] Alongside this, around 1 in 3 transactions fail, costing buyers and sellers around £400m per year.[3]

A key reason for these inefficiencies is that both consumers and professionals often struggle to access the right information at the right time. Significant problems which might affect a buyer’s decision – like damp problems or a lack of planning permissions – only emerge after their offer has been accepted.

Industry trials suggest that having key information available earlier in the process can speed up transactions by four weeks,[4] but data from National Trading Standards Estate Agency Team (NTSEAT) suggests that only c35% of listings contain adequate information, and some listings (c10%) don’t even include the most basic information such as costs and tenure type.

Our separate Home Buying and Selling Reform consultation sets out proposals for a home buying and selling system fit for the future, including potential measures to: clarify legal requirements for upfront information, professionalise estate agents and improve data accessibility and reliability.

As an immediate priority, we want to support estate agents in fulfilling their current legal responsibilities for ensuring consumers have the property information they need early in the process. As part of our work to improve home buying and selling, this consultation supports the broader government agenda to unlock housing supply, improve affordability, and support the delivery of 1.5 million homes over the next parliament.

A faster, more transparent home buying and selling system is essential to achieving this ambition.

Material information and why it is important for home buying and selling

Under the DMCCA material information includes all information that an average consumer needs to make an informed transactional decision. In practice, this means traders should ensure all key information is presented clearly, upfront to consumers.

The onus is on the trader to determine what an average consumer needs to know to make an informed decision. In the context of home buying and selling, this suggests that the responsibility is largely on estate agents and other property professionals to provide this information upfront and at the earliest opportunity.

The DMCCA, however, does not include a prescribed list of material information specific to residential property transactions, as this varies with each business-to-consumer interaction. Previous and ultimately unsuccessful attempts have been made to produce sector facing guidance regarding the provision of material information and no sector-specific guidance has been produced since the DMCCA has come into effect.

Information that should be provided

While the DMCCA does not include a prescribed list specific to residential property sales, it does indicate that the following information, not exclusively, is always considered material:

• The main characteristics of the product or service
• The identity and geographical address of the trader
• Total price (including taxes), or if this cannot be calculated by the trader, information that enables the consumer to calculate the price
• Additional optional charges (e.g. delivery fees)
• Payment, delivery, and performance arrangements
• Complaint handling policies
• The existence of cancellation or withdrawal rights 

When required material information should be provided

The DMCCA outlines that this information should be provided in any ‘invitation to purchase.’ An invitation to purchase is any communication that indicates the characteristics of the product and its price, and appears to enable the consumer to take any decision about the product. The communication must provide the information clearly, intelligibly and in a timely manner so that the consumer is likely to see it.

Other material information (which the consumer needs to make an informed transactional decision) must be provided before the consumer makes the transactional decision in question, such as deciding whether to view or purchase a product or to enter into a contract.

This information must also be provided clearly, intelligibly and in a timely manner so that the consumer is likely to see it. Providing it in an unclear or misleading way, or omitting it altogether, can be considered a misleading omission, which is unlawful.

For home buying and selling, this suggests that estate agents should consider including all the information that a prospective purchaser is likely to need in order to make an informed decision about whether to consider the property further, in the property listing. The listing should not omit information, for example, that could lead the purchaser to rule out the property if it is revealed at a later stage.

Our proposal and approach

We recognise how challenging obtaining, interpreting and publishing material information can be in the context of property sales. We therefore intend to produce new guidance that indicates what is likely to be considered material information, helps professionals meet their legal responsibilities and results in a better quality service for consumers.

The primary aim of this guidance will be to provide estate agents with an indication of the categories of information they need to include in residential property listings whilst also advising how other professionals and consumers should support the provision of material information.

It will never be possible to comprehensively define what material information should be included in all property listings: the information needed will vary from property to property and estate agents must ultimately use their judgement on this issue. Despite this, guidance will help estate agents navigate some of the ambiguity around what is and is not material information.

In order for this guidance to be successful, it must be shaped by expertise from estate agents and other property professionals who work alongside them. We also want to gather information from consumers on what would inform their decision regarding whether to purchase a property in order to understand what could be considered material information. We are therefore holding a public consultation on the issue.

This guidance will initially apply to residential property sales because the legal framework affecting the renting of property is fundamentally changing with the introduction of the Renters’ Rights Bill. We will return to the possibility of similar guidance for residential letting agents at a later stage.

This consultation draws extensively on the material information work undertaken by the National Trading Standards Estate and Letting Agency Teams and their industry steering group, and we are deeply appreciative of their efforts.