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What must be included in a UK property listing in 2026

The fields a sales or lettings listing has to carry, the law behind each one, and what the portals still demand after the Trading Standards guidance was withdrawn.

8 min readLast verified: 2026-09-02

What must be included in a UK property listing in 2026

A UK listing has to carry the price or rent, the tenure on a sale, the council tax band or domestic rates, the EPC letter band, and enough about the property for a buyer or tenant to take an informed decision. That last part is now section 230 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, in force since 6 April 2025, which makes omitting material information from an invitation to purchase unfair on its own. National Trading Standards withdrew its Parts A, B and C field lists on 8 May 2025 and no replacement has been published, but Rightmove still hosts those documents and its January 2026 technical guidelines still require members to work to them.

What has to be on every listing, whatever else you leave out?

3 items are unconditional on a sale. The asking price, the tenure, and the council tax band in England, Wales and Scotland or the domestic rate in Northern Ireland. On a letting the 3 are the rent, the deposit or deposits, and the council tax band or rate. Those were the Part A headings, and they are the ones the withdrawn guidance said should sit on the first page of the listing rather than behind a click.

The energy band is a separate statutory duty and does not depend on any of the above. Regulation 11 of the Energy Performance of Buildings (England and Wales) Regulations 2012 requires that where a building is offered for sale or rent, the asset rating expressed in the certificate is stated in any advertisement of the sale or rental in commercial media. The withdrawn guidance deliberately left EPCs off its own list on the basis that they are prescribed elsewhere, which is why a branch that treats the field lists as the whole job ends up with a compliant council tax band and a missing band letter.

Everything after that is a judgement about this property. The test in section 230(10) is whether the information indicates the characteristics of the product and its price and enables the consumer to decide whether to buy. A listing does that, so a listing is an invitation to purchase, and section 230(1) treats an unclear or untimely disclosure as no disclosure at all.

Where does the law actually say this now?

4 instruments carry the weight. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 supplies the disclosure duty at sections 226, 227 and 230, replacing the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 from 6 April 2025. The Energy Performance of Buildings Regulations supply the band. The Estate Agents Act 1979 supplies 2 duties people forget: section 18, information to clients about prospective liabilities, and section 21, disclosure of a personal interest in a transaction. Section 21 is the one that catches a branch selling a director's own flat without saying so on the particulars.

Lettings adds a fourth layer. Since 1 May 2026 section 56 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 requires a written advert for an assured tenancy in England and Wales to state a proposed rent, with a to let board at the property as the only carve out, and sections 33 to 35 make wording that shuts out families with children or benefit claimants a civil offence. Both are enforced by local housing authorities with penalties of up to 7,000 pounds. The detail is in Renters' Rights Act advert wording for letting agents.

What did the withdrawn Parts A, B and C contain?

They contained a field list, and the field list is still the best working checklist in circulation. Part A was the always material set. Part B was the set that should be established for every property whether or not it turns out to be interesting. Part C was the set that only matters if the property is affected, where the record of having checked is as important as the answer.

PartSales listingLettings listing
A, always materialasking price, tenure, council tax or domestic ratesrent, deposits, council tax or domestic rates
B, established for every propertyproperty type, construction materials, number and type of rooms, electricity, water, sewerage, heating, broadband, mobile coverage, parkingsame list
C, only if affectedbuilding safety, restrictions, rights and easements, flood risk, coastal erosion, planning permission, accessibility and adaptations, coalfield or mining areasame list

The guidance also set a placement rule that survives being useful even though the document itself no longer has force. Part A belongs on the first page of the listing. Part B and Part C should be no more than 1 click away for a consumer looking at an online listing. It named where to get the answers as well: the seller, HM Land Registry title documents and boundary plans, the local authority search, the planning portal, the water and drainage authority, the Coal Authority and the Environment Agency.

Both documents are version 1.0 from the National Trading Standards Estate and Letting Agency Team, and both are still downloadable from the Rightmove hub. That is worth knowing, because the January 2026 Rightmove technical guidelines expressly say the portal will continue to uphold previously established standards in the absence of sector specific guidance, and they link to those 2 files.

What do the portals require that the law does not?

Rightmove's rulebook adds requirements a careful agency treats as mandatory fields. A full property address including the first line, house name or number included, with new homes the only exception. Tenure disclosed on every sales listing. Price on application and other qualifiers such as offers invited or sale by tender removed on any listing added since 1 July 2022. Where a managed freehold carries a contribution to common areas or an access road, that charge goes in the description. Where rent is paid weekly, the description has to say so. Where a property is held in trust and probate has not been granted, that goes in the description too, on Primary Authority advice, because omitting it could mislead.

Lettings in England and Wales carries a further block. Permitted payments, client money protection and redress scheme membership all go in the Tenancy Info field, and the client money protection certificate can be uploaded under the brochure field. A discounted rent has to show the full monthly figure with the offer explained in the body text rather than an averaged headline number.

Zoopla's member terms require listing details to be prepared or carefully checked by the member before upload, and to be clear, complete, accurate and not misleading so that a consumer can make an informed decision. The wording is looser than Rightmove's, which makes it broader rather than softer.

Who checks, and what happens if a field is empty?

2 enforcers and 1 portal. The Competition and Markets Authority gained direct enforcement powers in April 2025 and can issue a final infringement notice with a penalty of up to 300,000 pounds or 10 per cent of global turnover, whichever is higher, without going to court. Local weights and measures authorities keep their own powers and act on single complaints. Separately, the portal will edit, suppress or remove data it believes is inaccurate, and repeat issues escalate to the branch rather than the listing, which is set out in why Rightmove rejects or removes a listing.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government roadmap of 19 June 2026 puts non statutory guidance on the quality of information in property listings and a non statutory Code of Practice for property agents in the current phase, with mandatory sales packs listed for later in the parliament. Until that guidance is published, the defensible position is the one Rightmove has taken: keep filling the same fields, keep the evidence of what you asked and what you were told, and treat an empty field as an answer you have not yet obtained.

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Frequently asked questions

Is the EPC band part of material information?

It sits outside the withdrawn field lists but inside the law. Regulation 11 requires the band in any advertisement in commercial media, which covers the portal listing, your own website, the brochure and the window card, and the penalty is a fixed 200 pounds per advertisement. The detail is in EPC rules when marketing a property in the UK.

Do we still have to use the Parts A, B and C structure?

There is no legal obligation to use those headings. There is a practical reason to: the portal fields were built around them, Rightmove still links to both documents, and a file organised that way produces a record of what was checked. The structure is a working tool now rather than a rule.

What if the seller will not answer a Part C question?

Record the question, the date you asked and the answer you were given, then say on the listing what is known and what is not. A stated unknown is a disclosure. A blank field where a known problem exists is a misleading omission under section 227, and the difference between the 2 is entirely in your file.

Does this apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland?

The consumer protection provisions apply across the United Kingdom. What sits underneath differs. Scotland requires a Home Report before marketing and uses its own energy report, Northern Ireland uses domestic rates instead of council tax bands, and the June 2026 roadmap covers England and Wales only.

Sources

Last verified: 2026-09-02