How to Ensure Your Property Listings Meet Material Information Rules8 Sep 2024

Your Guide to Material Information Compliance for Property Listings

In 2024, the property industry saw a significant push towards greater transparency with the introduction of new Material Information requirements. If you’re an estate or letting agent in the UK, you are now legally required to disclose essential information on property listings; whether you’re uploading through a CMS like Vebra Alto or Jupix, or manually entering details. Failure to comply can result in fines from Trading Standards.

This blog will provide you with everything you need to know to stay compliant, how your CMS feed works with website builders, and how you can ensure that administrators enter the correct data for listings.

What Exactly Is Material Information?
Material Information refers to critical details that potential buyers and renters need to make informed decisions. As an agent, it’s your responsibility to ensure this information is correct and clearly displayed in your listings. This is now being enforced under Trading Standards to prevent misleading omissions.

These are broken down into three stages: Part A, Part B, and Part C: with Part A being legally mandatory from 2022, covering crucial information like price, tenure, and council tax​​.

What Information Do I Need to Include?

Here’s a quick crib-sheet breakdown of what needs to be added to your CMS for property listings:

1. Price Information
   Sale Price (e.g., Offers in Excess of £1,800,000)
   Auction Price: Include Guide Price and Reserve Price for properties sold at auction
2. Tenure
   Tenure Type (Freehold, Leasehold, Share of Freehold, Commonhold)
   Length of Lease (for Leasehold properties)
   Ground Rent, Ground Rent Review Period, Service Charges​.
3. Council Tax
   Council Tax Band (e.g., Band G).
4. EPC (Energy Performance Certificate)
   EPC Rating: The rating (A-G) must be provided, but you don’t need to display the graph itself.
5. Broadband and Utilities
   Broadband Speed: It’s only required to state available broadband speeds, not the connection type (cable or Wi-Fi)​.
   Water Supply, Heating Type, Electric Supply​.
6. Rights & Restrictions
   Listed Building Status (e.g., Grade II Listed)
   Any Public or Private Rights of Way or restrictions​.
7. Parking & Gardens
   Parking (e.g., Allocated Off-Street or On-Street Parking)
   Garden (e.g., Private Garden)​.

How Does This Affect Your Content Management System?

If your agency uses a CMS like Vebra Alto, Jupix, or Reapit, you need to ensure that your administrators are adding the above information into dedicated fields within the system. This will allow it to feed correctly to property portals like Rightmove, Zoopla, and OnTheMarket.

Websites built to integrate with CMS feeds should pull through this data and ensure it displays in the correct sections. For example, price and tenure information should not be buried in the property description but shown in the relevant fields, ensuring compliance.

Manual Listings

If you’re manually entering details into property portals, make sure to use all available fields and not rely solely on the property description box for key information.

How Can We Help?

At Social Angels, we specialise in building websites that work seamlessly with your CMS feed, ensuring your property listings are compliant and displayed correctly across all platforms. If your CMS is missing any key fields, we can work with your provider to ensure that updates are made.

Download our full crib sheet here to make sure your team is fully up to speed with the latest requirements.

Jane Gardner

I work all over the UK with various business owners, dedicating my creative and expert property knowledge from almost 40 years in the industry. I am a Level 4 ARLA Propertymark examiner, I sit on the board of Agents Giving Charity and I love everything property related! I can be contacted on 01923 627777 or by email to jane@social-angels.co.uk