Under offer vs sold STC on a UK listing

What does "under offer" actually mean, and is it different from "sold STC"?

Neither phrase has a statutory definition. Both describe the same underlying fact, a seller has accepted, or is seriously considering, an offer, and the difference in practice comes down to convention rather than rule. Many agents use "under offer" for the earlier, less certain stage, where an offer has been made and is being weighed or negotiated, and move to "sold subject to contract" once the seller has formally accepted and solicitors have been instructed to proceed toward exchange. Other agents use the two terms interchangeably. Rightmove's Agent and Developer Technical Guidelines list "Sold subject to contract (SSTC)", "Under offer" and "Reserved" as three separate property statuses a sales listing can carry, alongside "Sold subject to concluded missives (SSTCM)" for Scotland, but the guidelines set common rules for how long each may run rather than a semantic definition of what separates them. The honest answer for a reader typing this into a search engine is that the label your own agency uses matters less than getting the status changed at the right moment and taken down at the right moment, which is where the actual portal and consumer protection risk sits.

What does "let agreed" mean, and when must a rental listing switch to it?

This one has a clearer trigger. Rightmove's guidelines require a rental listing to be flagged as let agreed from the point a tenant's offer is accepted and, separately, from the point a holding deposit is taken, whichever happens. Both are treated as the moment the property stops being genuinely available, and the requirement is to update the status at that point, not at the point the tenancy agreement is signed or the tenant moves in. Waiting until the tenancy starts to make the change leaves the listing live and enquiry channels open on a property that a prospective tenant has, in practice, already been promised.

When must the status actually change, and how long can it stay that way?

Rightmove's guidelines set out both ends of this. On the sales side, a listing must be flagged as SSTC from the point an offer is accepted until completion, and a sales listing carrying SSTC, SSTCM, under offer or reserved status may not sit in that status for longer than 8 months. On the lettings side, a let agreed listing may not sit in that status for longer than 6 weeks. Once a sale exchanges and completes, or a let is tenanted, the guidelines require the listing to be removed from the platform entirely, not merely relabelled. Rightmove also runs its own check against Land Registry and Registers of Scotland completion data and will remove listings it detects as completed independently of what the agent has done, which is a reasonable indication that leaving a completed sale live is treated as a data quality failure worth automating a fix for, not an edge case.

Is leaving the wrong status up just a portal problem, or a legal one too?

Both. On the portal side, Rightmove's guidelines describe the display of a status that does not match reality as a data quality issue, and describe the failure to update a let agreed or SSTC property as the single biggest source of frustration reported by people searching for a home, ahead of any other complaint the guidelines mention. On the legal side, the general law on misleading actions in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 makes it unlawful to give false or misleading information about a matter relevant to a consumer's transactional decision, and whether a property is genuinely available to buy or rent is squarely that kind of matter. Rightmove's own guidelines go further on one specific version of this problem: they state that inaccurately declaring a property as a fall through, meaning a buyer withdrew after a sale was shown as SSTC or under offer, is likely to be treated as a misleading action under the Act, carrying a penalty of a fine or up to two years imprisonment, and that Rightmove will provide confirmation of a false declaration to National Trading Standards on request. That is Rightmove's characterisation of the law in its own contractual terms with agents, not an independent finding by a court, but it reflects how seriously the portal treats a status that no longer matches the truth.

Does the multi-agency situation change any of this?

Yes, and this is where a status gets left wrong through no dishonesty at all. Where more than one agent is instructed on the same property, Rightmove's guidelines are explicit that only the agent who actually achieved the successful outcome, the one whose offer or tenancy was accepted, may advertise the property as SSTC or let agreed. Any other agent instructed on the same property must either continue advertising it as available, if they are still open to receiving offers, or remove their own listing from the market if offers are no longer being accepted. A property genuinely under offer through one agency should never show as SSTC on a rival agency's listing for the same address, because that rival was never the one who reached agreement, and their own listing status should reflect their own position, not the outcome achieved by someone else.

How does Scotland's status differ from England and Wales?

Scotland's conveyancing process does not use exchange of contracts, it uses a system of formal letters called missives, and Rightmove's guidelines reflect that with a Scotland only status, sold subject to concluded missives, sitting alongside the England and Wales SSTC label rather than replacing it. A Scottish sale is legally binding once missives are concluded, which happens earlier in the process than an English exchange typically does, and a listing should move to SSTCM at that point rather than waiting for the equivalent of a completion date. The Home Report requirements that apply before a Scottish property is marketed in the first place, and that sit behind this different timeline, are covered in Home Report rules for selling in Scotland.

Status	When it must be applied	Maximum time in that status
Sold subject to contract (SSTC)	From acceptance of an offer, England and Wales	Up to 8 months, then removal expected
Sold subject to concluded missives (SSTCM)	From conclusion of missives, Scotland	Up to 8 months, then removal expected
Under offer or reserved	From acceptance of an offer or reservation, often new build	Up to 8 months, then removal expected
Let agreed	From acceptance of a tenant's offer or a holding deposit being taken	Up to 6 weeks, then removal expected once tenanted

Frequently asked questions

Is "sale agreed" the same as "sold STC"?

In everyday use, most agents treat them as meaning the same thing, an offer has been accepted and the sale is proceeding. Neither term is defined in legislation, and the portals build their own status fields around SSTC rather than around "sale agreed" as a label, so the safer habit is to use whichever term your branch prefers consistently, and to make sure the underlying portal status field is set correctly regardless of the wording in the free text description.

Can a listing stay visible while a seller looks for a backup offer during SSTC?

This is a genuine grey area and the guidance available does not settle it cleanly. Rightmove's rules are built around a single status per listing, not a status that also signals openness to a backup, so an agent in this position should talk to the portal directly about how to represent it rather than leaving a live listing showing simple availability while privately fielding backup offers, since that is close to the situation the misleading action risk in this guide is written to describe.

What happens if an agent reloads a listing to give it a fresh status without a genuine change?

Rightmove treats this as a data quality issue in its own right, separate from the status question, and it is covered in detail in why Rightmove rejects or removes a property listing. The short version is that a status or an added on date only resets under specific, defined conditions, and manufacturing a reset outside them is treated the same way as any other inaccurate listing.

Does the same rule apply on other portals, not just Rightmove?

The general legal position, that showing a property as available when it is not risks being a misleading action, applies regardless of which portal carries the listing. The specific timings in this guide, the 8 month and 6 week limits and the multi-agency rule, are drawn from Rightmove's own published technical guidelines, and this guide has not verified whether another portal publishes an identical set of limits, so treat those specific figures as Rightmove's position rather than an industry wide standard until confirmed otherwise.

Where does the wording of a description fit into all this?

The status field and the free text description are two different things, and a description that still reads as an open invitation to view a property that has moved to SSTC or let agreed compounds the same problem the status field is meant to solve. The rules governing what the description itself can and cannot say are covered separately in misleading property description penalties.

Sources

• Rightmove Agent and Developer Technical Guidelines, January 2026, Rightmove
• Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, section 226, legislation.gov.uk
• Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, section 227, legislation.gov.uk

Last verified: 2026-09-07