Real estate agents exclude lease details and other essential information from online real estate listings

Real estate agents continue to exclude crucial real estate information from their online real estate advertisements, despite being legally obliged to do so.

Many property listings do not comply with current legislation, according to research from the HomeOwners Alliance, meaning people are left without crucial information in the early stages of buying a home.

The HomeOwners Alliance research assessed listings from Rightmove, Zoopla and OntheMarket in London and Manchester and found many agents were not following the rules.

Almost a quarter of the leasehold advertisements did not mention the number of years remaining on the lease.

Nearly two in five advertisements did not mention service costs and about half omitted details about the canon. Less than one in ten mention the date of the next canon revision.

The Homeowners Alliance found that 6 percent of listings don’t even mention whether a property is freehold or leasehold.

Agents are required to provide this and other ‘material information’ under the Consumer Protection Against Unfair Trading Regulations, and were reminded of this by Trading Standards which issued guidance on the subject in November 2023.

In addition to shortcomings in the area of ​​leasehold disclosures, there was also a lack of information on energy and municipal taxes.

A quarter of the listings did not contain an energy performance certificate, despite this being legally required since 2013.

Only two-thirds of listings included the council tax band, despite this being required for all listings. Listings in London were less likely to include council tax (55 percent) than in Manchester (77 percent).

Many listings also appear to overlook issues with the Construction Safety Act. Only nine of the 45 listings of high-rise properties referred to having an EWS1 certificate required by lenders due to the cladding scandal.

Only 5 percent of listings include details about accessibility and restrictions on the property.

More than half of listings did not disclose whether there was parking available or not, while almost a third shared no information about broadband speed or mobile signal coverage.

One in five do not share the heating source, for example whether the property has a gas boiler or is heated with another method, such as oil or a heat pump.

A similar percentage of listings did not show the home’s square footage.

When comparing the portals, Zoopla and OnTheMarket’s offers were generally more extensive than Rightmove’s, the research found.

For example, 86 percent of Zoopla listings and 78 percent of OnTheMarket listings included the number of years remaining on the lease, compared to Rightmove’s 70 percent.

Paula Higgins, CEO of HomeOwners Alliance, said: ‘We know that location, price and parking are top of the list of things people look at when buying a home.

‘But very soon afterwards we want to know if there are any possible deal breakers: is it an apartment with only a few years of rent left or sky-high service costs?

‘Is there any cladding that could cause us to have difficulty getting a mortgage and face unfair costs? Does it have a poor energy label, meaning the house costs double what it should use?

‘So the industry’s move to do more in providing information that could have a material impact on our decision to buy a home is very welcome.

‘But a year later, the picture is still fragmentary and simply not good enough. Homeowners shouldn’t have to wait until they’re three months in, having spent hundreds on legal fees and investigations, to discover that the ground rent will double, that the house will cost more to heat than their current home, and they can do that too . ‘not getting a mortgage because of cladding.’