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Material information on UK property listings in 2026

Trading Standards withdrew the Parts A, B and C guidance in May 2025, but the disclosure duty survived it. What still has to appear on a UK listing.

8 min readLast verified: 2026-09-02

Material information on UK property listings in 2026

The duty to disclose material information on a property listing is still live and still enforceable. Since 6 April 2025 it sits in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, which replaced the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 and made omitting material information from an invitation to purchase an unfair commercial practice in its own right. National Trading Standards withdrew its Parts A, B and C guidance on 8 May 2025 and nothing has replaced it, so the working answer for a branch is to keep completing the same portal fields until the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government publishes the listing guidance it committed to in its roadmap of 19 June 2026.

What counts as material information on a listing?

The test has not changed much in substance. Material information is what the average consumer needs, in context, to take an informed transactional decision about the property. The change is in how the omission is treated. Under the old Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 an enforcer generally had to show that the omission affected, or was likely to affect, the consumer's decision. Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 an omission from an invitation to purchase is unfair without that extra step, and a listing on a portal, on your own website, on social media or in the branch window is an invitation to purchase.

Enforcement moved as well. The Competition and Markets Authority can now act directly rather than through the courts, and the ceiling for a substantive consumer law breach is 10 per cent of global annual turnover or 300,000 pounds, whichever is higher. Local trading standards services retain their own powers. For a single branch the realistic risk is not a headline fine, it is a complaint, an information request and a listing pulled off a portal in the middle of a launch weekend.

Why did Trading Standards withdraw the Parts A, B and C guidance?

The guidance was written to explain obligations under the 2008 Regulations. When those Regulations were superseded on 6 April 2025 the guidance was describing a law that no longer existed, and the National Trading Standards Estate and Letting Agency Team pulled it on 8 May 2025. The withdrawal was abrupt and the sector said so. The Law Society's then vice president Mark Evans said the immediate withdrawal had left consumers, conveyancers and estate agents in the dark, and the Council for Licensed Conveyancers urged the sector to carry on with the approach National Trading Standards had set.

The CMA published general guidance on unfair commercial practices instead, CMA207, most recently updated on 18 November 2025. It covers material information in an invitation to purchase, misleading actions and omissions, and professional diligence, but it is written for all consumer facing businesses rather than for property. The CMA has pointed at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government work as the route to anything sector specific. That roadmap, published on 19 June 2026, commits the government to publish non-statutory guidance on the quality of information in property listings and a non-statutory Code of Practice for property agents, with legislation on upfront sales packs to follow when parliamentary time allows.

Until that guidance lands, the sensible position for a branch is that the withdrawn A, B and C structure remains the best available working checklist. It has no legal force of its own. It was, however, built with the portals, and the portals still carry the fields.

What do the portals still expect in the fields?

Rightmove built its Parts B and C fields after the November 2023 announcement and said at the time that they would not surface on the public site until the second quarter of 2024. Those fields are still there: parking, accessibility, utility supplies, rights and restrictions, listed status and flood risk. Rightmove's Agent and Developer Technical Guidelines of January 2026 go further in places than the withdrawn guidance did. Tenure must be disclosed on a sales listing. Where a property is held in trust and probate has not been granted, that has to appear in the description, because omitting it could mislead. Where a rental is offered with a discount, the headline price must be the full monthly rent with the offer explained in the body text.

Zoopla's member terms, effective 1 December 2025, require listing content to be accurate, transparent, up to date and not misleading, and require members to disclose where content has been produced using machine learning or similar technology. Both portals treat an empty compliance field as a data quality problem rather than a neutral choice.

How do Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland differ?

Scotland is the real divergence and the one buyers ask about most. Since 1 December 2008 a home coming to the market in Scotland must have a Home Report: a single survey and valuation, a property questionnaire completed by the seller, and an energy report. A seller or selling agent must give a prospective buyer the Home Report within nine days of a request. Exemptions are narrow and cover things such as new homes sold off plan or to a first occupier, newly converted homes not yet occupied, dual use property and seasonal holiday homes. An exempt property still needs an Energy Performance Certificate.

England and Wales have no equivalent upfront pack yet, which is exactly what the sales pack element of the June 2026 roadmap is aimed at. Northern Ireland sits outside the England and Wales consumer housing framework in several places, and PropertyPal was one of the portals that worked with National Trading Standards on the original material information project. The consumer protection provisions of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act apply across the United Kingdom, so the disclosure duty itself does not stop at a border even where the property law underneath it does.

What does a branch checklist look like in practice?

Treat it as three passes over the same file. Everything in the first pass belongs on every listing. Everything in the second belongs on every listing but takes a phone call or a document to establish. Everything in the third only applies if the property is affected, and you record the fact that you checked.

PassSales listingLettings listing
Always statedprice, tenure, council tax bandrent per period, deposit, council tax band, bills included
Established for every propertyproperty type, construction, rooms, utilities, heating, broadband, parking, accessibilityproperty type, rooms, utilities, heating, broadband, parking, furnishing, permitted payments
Only if affectedflood or erosion risk, restrictive covenants, rights of way, listed status, mining, claddingflood risk, restrictions in the tenancy, building safety issues

Lettings agents in England carry two extra display duties that sit alongside the listing itself. Membership of a government approved redress scheme has been compulsory for lettings agency and property management work since the 2014 Order, with a penalty of up to 5,000 pounds for failing to join. Client money protection has been compulsory since the 2019 Regulations, with a penalty of up to 30,000 pounds for not belonging to a scheme and up to 5,000 pounds for breaching the transparency requirements, which are to display the certificate at each office where you deal with people face to face, publish it on your website and produce a copy free of charge to anyone who reasonably asks. Rightmove asks for permitted payments, client money protection and redress scheme details in the Tenancy Info field on every England and Wales rental listing.

Estate agents have their own long standing obligation under the Estate Agents (Redress Scheme) Order 2008 to belong to an approved scheme. None of this is new. It is the part of the file that gets missed when a listing goes live in a hurry, and it is visible from outside the business, which is why it is easy to check and easy to complain about.

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Frequently asked questions

Is material information still legally required now the guidance is gone?

Yes. The guidance was withdrawn, not the duty. The obligation now sits in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 and applies from 6 April 2025, and omitting material information from an invitation to purchase is treated as unfair without an enforcer having to prove an effect on the consumer's decision.

Should we keep using the Parts A, B and C headings internally?

Most branches have. The structure has no legal status now, but it maps onto the portal fields, staff already know it, and it gives you a defensible record of what you asked and what you were told. Keep the evidence as well as the answer.

Who enforces this, the CMA or local trading standards?

Both. The CMA gained direct enforcement powers under the Act and no longer needs a court to impose a penalty. Local weights and measures authorities continue to enforce in their own areas and can act on a single consumer complaint.

When is the new government guidance due?

The roadmap published on 19 June 2026 puts non-statutory guidance on information in property listings and a non-statutory Code of Practice for property agents in the "now" phase for 2026. Sales pack legislation is listed for when parliamentary time allows, so treat the guidance as the near term change and the sales pack as the medium term one.

Does any of this change how a listing should be written?

It changes what has to be in it, not the craft of it. The description still has to sell, and the same rules on misleading statements apply to the words as to the missing fields, which is covered in the property description rules for UK estate agents and, for the energy rating specifically, in EPC rules when marketing a property in the UK.

Sources

Last verified: 2026-09-02