Estate agent fee transparency rules in the UK

What actually changed on 6 April 2025?

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 replaced the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 as the law governing unfair commercial practices, and the Competition and Markets Authority confirms in its own guidance that the unfair commercial practices provisions, Chapter 1 of Part 4 of the Act, apply to practices taking place from 6 April 2025 onward. Sections 226 and 227 carried over the existing law on misleading actions and misleading omissions largely unchanged in substance. Section 230 is the section that matters most for a fee statement. It sets out what counts as material information in an invitation to purchase, and it says explicitly that the total price of a product includes any fees, taxes, charges or other payments a consumer will necessarily incur if they buy it. An estate agent's own service, advertised to a prospective seller or landlord, is a product for this purpose, and the seller or landlord reading the advert is the consumer.

The practical change is enforcement, not the underlying principle. Omitting this information from an invitation to purchase is now unfair on its own, without a regulator having to show it affected anyone's decision. The Competition and Markets Authority can act directly rather than going through the courts, and local trading standards services keep their own powers alongside it.

What counts as a mandatory charge that has to sit in the headline fee?

The Competition and Markets Authority's price transparency guidance, CMA209, sets a plain test. If a client cannot receive the service without paying a charge, that charge is mandatory and belongs in the total price, whatever it is called and however it is presented. The guidance names purchase taxes such as VAT explicitly as an example of a mandatory charge. It also covers administration fees however described, and charges resulting from a trader's own input costs that are passed straight on rather than genuinely optional. Presenting a charge on a separate line, or describing it as an extra, does not make it optional if a client has to pay it to use the service.

This is the rule behind the common complaint about a rate card that reads "1% commission" in large type with "plus VAT, plus a withdrawal fee, plus a minimum fee of X" printed in smaller type underneath. If none of those additional amounts is something a seller can decline, the guidance treats the smaller print as part of the price that should have been in the headline figure, not as a disclosure that fixes the problem by existing somewhere on the page.

Does the fee have to show VAT, or can it say "plus VAT"?

VAT is named in CMA209 as an example of a mandatory charge, and a mandatory charge belongs in the total price rather than beside it. A price is also likely to be judged misleading under the wider law on misleading actions if it is not one most consumers could actually pay, and a VAT exclusive figure understates what a VAT registered agency will actually charge a seller once the invoice arrives. The safer reading of the guidance is that a headline fee should be shown inclusive of VAT, with the VAT exclusive rate available as supporting detail if useful, rather than the other way around. This is a change in emphasis from a market where quoting "1% plus VAT" was treated as normal, and it is the single most common gap between what a branch's current rate card says and what a compliant one should say.

What about a fee that is a percentage of a sale price nobody knows yet?

This is the case the guidance was clearly written with in mind, even though it never mentions estate agency directly. Section 230 allows for products where the total price cannot reasonably be calculated in advance because of the nature of the product, and it requires the trader to give the consumer the information needed to work the price out themselves, set out with the same prominence as any figure that is calculable. CMA209 gives several ways a trader can meet this where a final price depends on facts only known later, and any of them will work for a percentage based estate agency fee. A branch can publish the rate and confirm it applies to the final agreed sale price. It can advertise an indicative or "from" figure, provided that figure is realistic and a genuine seller could actually achieve it, not a rate reserved for an unusual case. Or it can decline to quote a figure until it has enough information about the specific property to give one, which the guidance explicitly allows for services such as home improvement and removals where a firm price only follows an assessment.

What it cannot do is present a rate that most instructions will not actually receive as if it were the standard one, in the way a "from" price for a hotel room becomes misleading if it only applies to a room type nobody could book on the dates advertised.

What is drip pricing, and does a rate card actually do it?

Drip pricing is the Competition and Markets Authority's own term, used in both CMA207 and CMA209, for showing a consumer an initial headline price and then introducing further mandatory charges as they proceed toward a purchase or agreement. A seller who is quoted 1% on the phone, agrees to instruct the agent on that basis, and only then learns about a tie in fee, a withdrawal charge if the sale falls through, or VAT on top, has been drip priced in the sense the guidance describes, even if every one of those charges was technically written into the terms of business the seller signed later. The fix is not a longer terms of business document. It is stating the full, VAT inclusive figure, and any other charge a seller will not reasonably avoid, at the point the fee is first advertised.

How does this sit alongside the existing duty to give clients written terms?

Section 18 of the Estate Agents Act 1979 already requires an agent to give a client written particulars of when they become liable to pay, and the amount of the remuneration, before entering into a contract with them, and a contract made without that information is unenforceable except by court order. That duty is separate from the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 and predates it by decades. It is triggered by an actual client relationship and enforced through the contract itself. The 2024 Act's duty is triggered earlier, by an advert or a website reaching anyone who might become a client, and is enforced by the Competition and Markets Authority or local trading standards rather than through the contract. A branch that gets the written terms of business right can still fail the newer duty if its website or its window card states the fee in a way the terms of business never see, which is exactly the gap this guide is written to close. The wider duty to disclose material information on the property itself, rather than the agent's own fee, is covered in material information on UK property listings in 2026, and the separate registration duty that has to be met before a branch can lawfully take an instruction at all is covered in AML checks an estate agent needs before marketing.

Charge	Example	Must it be in the headline fee?
VAT	20% on the agreed commission	Yes, it is a mandatory charge
Percentage commission on an unknown sale price	1.2% of the eventual sale price	State the rate and how it applies, with equal prominence to any figure shown
Withdrawal or tie in fee	Charged even where the sale falls through	Yes, if a client cannot avoid it
Genuinely optional extra	A premium portal upgrade a seller can decline	No, provided declining it does not block the core service

Frequently asked questions

Does this apply to fees charged to tenants as well as sellers?

Most fees a letting agent could charge a tenant directly are already banned outright by the Tenant Fees Act 2019, which is a separate piece of legislation with its own permitted payments list. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 duty covered in this guide is about how an agent advertises the fee it charges its own client, the seller or the landlord, for its service.

Is advertising a fee "from 0.75%" allowed?

It can be, provided the rate a seller would actually be quoted for a typical instruction is at or close to that figure. An indicative or "from" price that only applies to an unusual case, such as a portfolio landlord or an off market referral, while ordinary sellers are quoted a higher rate, is the kind of pricing the Competition and Markets Authority treats as not realistic, meaningful or attainable, and therefore likely misleading.

Who actually enforces this against a single branch?

Both the Competition and Markets Authority and local trading standards services can act. The Competition and Markets Authority gained the power to enforce directly, without going to court first, under the same Act. For most branches the more likely first contact is a local trading standards enquiry prompted by a complaint, not a national investigation.

Does the old EAA 1979 written terms of business duty still matter?

Yes, and it has not changed. It sits alongside the newer duty rather than replacing it. Getting the written terms of business right for an actual client does not excuse a website or an advert that states the fee to the wider public in a way that omits VAT or a charge most sellers cannot avoid.

What should a compliant fee statement on a website actually look like?

A single figure or rate, stated inclusive of VAT, that a typical seller could actually be quoted, with any other charge that most sellers will not avoid, such as a withdrawal fee, disclosed alongside it rather than left to the terms of business. Where the final price depends on the sale price, state the rate and confirm what it is applied to, in text as prominent as the rate itself.

Sources

• Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, sections 225 to 230, legislation.gov.uk
• Unfair commercial practices, CMA207, 18 November 2025, Competition and Markets Authority
• Price transparency, CMA209, 18 November 2025, Competition and Markets Authority
• Estate Agents Act 1979, section 18, legislation.gov.uk
• Tenant Fees Act 2019, legislation.gov.uk

Last verified: 2026-09-07