Estate agents required to share property information by NTSELAT

National Trading Standards’ Estate and Lettings Agency Team (NTSELAT) has published guidance about the minimum level information that estate agents have to provide when advertising a property for sale or to let.

Attendees at our property conference in October will have heard high-level discussion by NTSELAT. The details have been kept confidential until now.

Most estate agents will not have seen this previously so it will not be coming into practice immediately in most cases.

What is ‘material information’?

According to the NTSELAT guidance, the ‘material information’ required when a property is advertised should include:

For all properties:

• purchase price
• floor plan/room measurements
• EPC rating
• council tax
• tenure
• additional financial charges – for example, ground rent, service charge, estate rent charge
• utilities connected to the mains
• broadband
• mobile phone coverage
• parking arrangements

For those properties where relevant:

• restrictions on use and alteration
• rights of way
• reservations
• accessibility
• mining
• flooding
• coastal erosion

The guidance indicates that it does not expect estate agents to be able to explain all restrictions or some search results and title information.

It suggests that the estate agent should encourage the seller to instruct a solicitor or conveyancer at an early stage to assist with this.

The aim is to ensure that the buyer is much better informed at the start of the process which should reduce the number of transactions that fail.

Share your views

We are keen to hear from conveyancing solicitors on the content of the guidance and how this will operate in practice.