Open consultation

Material information in property listings

Published 6 October 2025

This consultation seeks views on how government issued guidance can support estate agents with their legal responsibility to provide potential buyers with relevant information (material information) during residential property transactions, as well as views on what should be considered material information for buyers.

Geographical scope

We are inviting perspectives from across the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland).

Body responsible for the consultation

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).

Duration

This consultation will last for 12 weeks from 6 October to 29 December 2025.

Enquiries

For any enquiries about the consultation, email homebuyingandselling@communities.gov.uk.

How to respond

Respond to the consultation by completing the online survey.

Alternatively you can email your response to the questions in this consultation to homebuyingandselling@communities.gov.uk.

If you are responding in writing, please make it clear which questions you are responding to. 

Written responses should be sent to: 

Home Buying and Selling Consultation, 
Attn: Homeownership Division,  
Fry Building,
2 Marsham Street, 
Westminster, 
London, 
SW1P 4DF

When you reply confirm whether you are replying as an individual or submitting an official response on behalf of an organisation. You should also include:  

• your name
• your position (if applicable)
• the name of organisation (if applicable)
• an address (including post code) 
• an email address
• a contact telephone number

Introduction

This consultation is aimed at estate agents, other property professionals involved in the home buying and selling process and members of the public.

We are seeking views on how government issued guidance can best support estate agents with their legal responsibility to provide potential buyers with relevant information (material information) during residential property transactions.

The consultation also seeks views on how this guidance can improve consumers’ understanding of what they should expect from property professionals, and of the role they themselves play in ensuring key property information is available upfront.  

Guidance will be subject to The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA), which protects consumers from unfair trading practices and prohibits traders from omitting (or providing unclear, untimely or obscure) material information to consumers.

The territorial extent of any material information guidance will depend on consultation outcomes and subsequent legislation but, given the DMCCA is UK-wide legislation, we are inviting perspectives from across the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland).

The home buying and selling process is long, complicated and frustrating for both consumers and property professionals. It takes an average of 120 days to complete once an offer has been accepted^{[footnote 1]},1 which is 60% longer compared to 2007^{[footnote 2]}. Alongside this, around 1 in 3 transactions fail, costing buyers and sellers around £400m per year^{[footnote 3]}.

A key reason for these inefficiencies is that both consumers and professionals often struggle to access the right information at the right time. Significant problems which might affect a buyer’s decision – like damp problems or a lack of planning permissions – only emerge after their offer has been accepted.

Industry trials suggest that having key information available earlier in the process can speed up transactions by 4 weeks^{[footnote 4]}, but data from National Trading Standards Estate Agency Team (NTSEAT) suggests that only circa 35% of listings contain adequate information, and some listings (circa 10%) don’t even include the most basic information such as costs and tenure type.

Our home buying and selling reform consultation sets out proposals for a home buying and selling system fit for the future, including potential measures to: clarify legal requirements for upfront information, professionalise estate agents and improve data accessibility and reliability.

As an immediate priority, we want to support estate agents in fulfilling their current legal responsibilities for ensuring consumers have the property information they need early in the process. As part of our work to improve home buying and selling, this consultation supports the broader government agenda to unlock housing supply, improve affordability, and support the delivery of 1.5 million homes over the next parliament.

A faster, more transparent home buying and selling system is essential to achieving this ambition.

Material information and why it is important for home buying and selling

Under the DMCCA material information includes all information that an average consumer needs to make an informed transactional decision. In practice, this means traders should ensure all key information is presented clearly, upfront to consumers.  

The onus is on the trader to determine what an average consumer needs to know to make an informed decision. In the context of home buying and selling, this suggests that the responsibility is largely on estate agents and other property professionals to provide this information upfront and at the earliest opportunity.

The DMCCA, however, does not include a prescribed list of material information specific to residential property transactions, as this varies with each business-to-consumer interaction. Previous and ultimately unsuccessful attempts have been made to produce sector facing guidance regarding the provision of material information and no sector-specific guidance has been produced since the DMCCA has come into effect.

Information that should be provided

While the DMCCA does not include a prescribed list specific to residential property sales, it does indicate that the following information, not exclusively, is always considered material:  

• the main characteristics of the product or service 
• the identity and geographical address of the trader 
• total price (including taxes), or if this cannot be calculated by the trader, information that enables the consumer to calculate the price  
• additional optional charges (for example, delivery fees) 
• payment, delivery, and performance arrangements 
• complaint handling policies 
• the existence of cancellation or withdrawal rights

When required material information should be provided

The DMCCA outlines that this information should be provided in any ‘invitation to purchase.’ An invitation to purchase is any communication that indicates the characteristics of the product and its price, and appears to enable the consumer to take any decision about the product. The communication must provide the information clearly, intelligibly and in a timely manner so that the consumer is likely to see it.  

Other material information (which the consumer needs to make an informed transactional decision) must be provided before the consumer makes the transactional decision in question, such as deciding whether to view or purchase a product or to enter into a contract.  

This information must also be provided clearly, intelligibly and in a timely manner so that the consumer is likely to see it. Providing it in an unclear or misleading way, or omitting it altogether, can be considered a misleading omission, which is unlawful.  

For home buying and selling, this suggests that estate agents should consider including all the information that a prospective purchaser is likely to need in order to make an informed decision about whether to consider the property further, in the property listing. The listing should not omit information, for example, that could lead the purchaser to rule out the property if it is revealed at a later stage.

Our proposal and approach

We recognise how challenging obtaining, interpreting and publishing material information can be in the context of property sales. We therefore intend to produce new guidance that indicates what is likely to be considered material information, helps professionals meet their legal responsibilities and results in a better quality service for consumers. 

The primary aim of this guidance will be to provide estate agents with an indication of the categories of information they need to include in residential property listings whilst also advising how other professionals and consumers should support the provision of material information.

It will never be possible to comprehensively define what material information should be included in all property listings: the information needed will vary from property to property and estate agents must ultimately use their judgement on this issue. Despite this, guidance will help estate agents navigate some of the ambiguity around what is and is not material information.  

In order for this guidance to be successful, it must be shaped by expertise from estate agents and other property professionals who work alongside them. We also want to gather information from consumers on what would inform their decision regarding whether to purchase a property in order to understand what could be considered material information. We are therefore holding a public consultation on the issue.  

This guidance will initially apply to residential property sales because the legal framework affecting the renting of property is fundamentally changing with the introduction of the Renters’ Rights Bill. We will return to the possibility of similar guidance for residential letting agents at a later stage.  

This consultation draws extensively on the material information work undertaken by the National Trading Standards Estate and Letting Agency Teams and their industry steering group, and we are deeply appreciative of their efforts.

Consultation questions

Question 1 

Are you responding as an individual or organisation? 

Question 2 

If responding as an individual - what is your name? 

Question 3 

If responding on behalf of an organisation - what is the name of your organisation and what is your role? 

Question 4 

What type of organisation are you responding on behalf of – estate agent, surveyor, conveyancer, professional body, developer, other?

Challenges in providing material information

As set out above, it is difficult to accurately set out a definitive list of material information which should apply to every transaction. It can be challenging to obtain, interpret or verify the accuracy of key information, particularly for technical data such as information about the construction of the property.

In some cases, the most detail estate agents can provide is an indication that they’ve undertaken due diligence to acquire and provide information, or an indication that an issue may be present which requires further technical expertise (for example, from a surveyor) to verify.  

Even when estate agents have gathered and verified relevant material information, it can be difficult to decide how and when to present this information in a way that is most useful to consumers.

Equally, some estate agents do not make sufficient effort to provide material information. We are aware that some estate agents knowingly disregard their responsibilities regarding material information as they believe requesting this information could deter sellers from listing their property with them.  

We need to understand the challenges in providing material information to help inform potential solutions.

Consultation questions

Question 5 

What do you think are the most significant issues that prevent estate agents from providing material information in property listings? 

Question 6 

In addition to providing guidance, what other steps do you think government should take to support estate agents to meet their legal responsibilities with regard to material information?

For example, this may include mandatory qualifications or training, or providing standardised forms to support information gathering. 

Question 7 

What action would you like to see from other organisations or property professionals, and consumers, to support estate agents with their legal responsibilities regarding material information?

What should be considered material information 

Despite the challenges of definitively stating what should be classed as material information for every transaction, we think that guidance providing estate agents with an indicative list of what is likely to be considered material for most properties would help them meet their legal responsibilities, and improve property transactions for consumers. We are therefore seeking views on what should be considered material information for a typical transaction. 

We have heard that there are some information categories that would likely be material in most instances, but which are challenging to display in property listings in a way that is easily understood by consumers. We are seeking views on how these issues should be handled in any guidance on material information.

Consultation questions 

Question 8 

What information categories do you think should be included in guidance as things that would likely be considered material information?

The list below shows categories that we think may be considered material information, based on previous guidance and engagement with industry stakeholders:

• price
• council tax and domestic rates
• tenure, including time remaining on lease (if applicable)
• ground rent or service charges (if applicable)
• electricity supply
• water supply
• sewerage
• heating type
• broadband
• mobile signal and coverage
• property type (for example, terraced, detached)
• number and types of room
• parking
• accessibility and adaptations
• rights and easements
• flood risk
• property construction (for example, standard, thatched roof, prefabricated)
• issues with property (for example, damp, subsidence, asbestos, Japanese knotweed)
• building safety defects, including fire and structural risk modifications
• restrictions (for example, listed property, conservation area, restrictions on usage)
• coastal erosion
• planning permission
• coalfield or mining area
• any other category

Question 9 

Are there any information categories you want to highlight as data you would not consider material information? If so, why would you not consider it material information? 

Question 10 

Are there any information categories that you think should be considered material information, but which could be challenging to display in property listings in a way that is easily understood by consumers?

How do you think any information categories of this sort should be treated?

When should information be provided 

Consumers should be provided with material information at the earliest possible opportunity.  

Some stakeholders have highlighted that, there is a difference between the level of detail buyers need before viewing a property and after. We have also heard that providing too much information upfront in property listings could confuse buyers.

However, even if comprehensive material information is provided at a later stage, not providing information in a property listing can create problems. For example, if a potential buyer travels a long distance to view a property only to learn something vital that means the property is not appropriate for them.   

We need to get the balance right in terms of the level of information that is provided at different stages. 

Consultation questions

Question 11 

Do you think it is reasonable for any information that could be considered material to not be included in full detail in property listings, instead with further details being provided at a later stage in the process, for example when a customer views a property? 

Question 12 

If so, what are the differences between information you think should be included in property listings vs that which should be provided at a later stage?

Can you give examples of each?

Working with other professions 

Estate agents are not expected to have a comprehensive understanding of property law or surveying, which creates challenges for the provision of material information.

For example, if a property has complex legal rights and restrictions regarding its use, whilst this could be material to a buyer, this information may be hard for an estate agent to interpret without the assistance of a conveyancer.

This presents a difficulty given that, in our current system, sellers’ conveyancers are oftentimes only instructed after a property has been listed. This is one of the reasons why we think it is good practice for sellers to instruct their conveyancers prior to listing a property.   

Similarly, technical information regarding the construction of the property could be material to a buyer but this could be hard to obtain without the involvement of a surveyor. Again, this is challenging given that surveys are typically commissioned by buyers after an offer has been accepted. 

Consultation questions       

Question 13 

What should be the requirement on estate agents regarding material information that could require technical expertise to obtain or interpret?   

Question 14 

What should guidance state about estate agents working with surveyors and conveyancers to obtain or interpret technical information? 

Question 15 

What should guidance say about estate agents working with other property professionals such as managing agents, mortgage advisers, lenders etcetera?

Verification and data accuracy 

Material information is only useful if it is accurate. Ideally, the material information collected by estate agents would be reliable so that conveyancers and consumers can trust it, helping to speed up latter stages of the transaction.  

We are already taking action to ensure property data is accessible, digital and accurate through HM Land Registry’s Local Land Charge programme, and the local authority property data pilots announced earlier this year^{[footnote 5]}.

Our home buying and selling reform consultation sets out proposals for how we could take this further to deliver a home buying and selling system that makes full use of digital information and processes to create a customer experience fit for the 21st century. We are also proposing that we consult on estate agent qualifications to support this issue further.  

As well as helping to define material information, we believe guidance should support estate agents to ensure this information is accurate, for example by providing links to trusted sources of relevant information where this is possible.

Consultation questions

Question 16 

How could guidance on material information ensure data gathered by estate agents, and supplied by sellers, is as accurate as possible? 

Question 17 

What else could government do to ensure information gathered by estate agents is as reliable as possible? 

Question 18 

What could other organisations and sellers do to ensure information gathered by estate agents is as reliable as possible?

Audience of the guidance

Guidance on material information should primarily aim to support estate agents with their legal responsibilities. However, consumer education will be an important part of making material information policy a success.

Sellers and buyers need to understand their rights and responsibilities regarding material information and be supported to interpret more technical information.  

As mentioned above, estate agents may have to work with other property professionals such as conveyancers and surveyors to obtain or verify material information.

For these reasons, it may be helpful for material information guidance to include instruction for additional audiences. 

Consultation questions

Question 19 

How can we most effectively support consumers to understand their rights and responsibilities regarding material information? 

Question 20 

Which of these audiences do you think should be provided with guidance on material information alongside estate agents – buyers, sellers, conveyancers, surveyors, etcetera.

Enforcement 

There are a number of different organisations that have a role to play in consumer law enforcement including:

• local authority trading standards teams
• the National Trading Standards Estate Agency team
• the Competition and Markets Authority
• consumer redress schemes

Consultation questions

Question 21 

What information regarding enforcement do you think should be contained in the material information guidance?

For example, this may include information about the different organisations estate agents are accountable to, including details on their specific roles. 

Implementation 

If necessary, government will take further steps alongside the publication of guidance for material information policy to achieve its aims.

Industry may also need to take action to support the implementation of guidance. For example, the property portals and associated companies may need to update their systems and services to enable material information to be routinely uploaded online.  

For some estate agents, abiding by the guidance will require changes to their existing practices. We are therefore interested in whether material information guidance should be rolled out gradually during an implementation period.

Consultation questions

Question 22 

What steps beyond those highlighted in your response to question 6 do you think government should take to support the implementation of material information guidance? 

Question 23 

What steps beyond those highlighted in question 7 do you think other organisations should take to support the implementation of material information guidance? 

Question 24 

Are there changes industry or individual businesses will have to make to support the effective implementation of guidance on material information which you wish to highlight? 

Question 25 

Do you think that material information guidance should be rolled out gradually during an implementation period? 

Question 26 

Is there anything else, beyond the issues highlighted in the questions above, that you think needs to be included in guidance to support estate agents with their responsibilities regarding material information?

Potential impact

Our proposal to introduce material information guidance forms part of a broader package of home buying and selling reform proposals which we are consulting on separately.

We have not carried out a full impact assessment given our proposals are yet to be confirmed, and we would undertake further analysis of impacts before finalising.

At this stage, high-level analysis has been undertaken to consider the impact of our proposals as a whole. The analysis in the Home buying and selling reform consultation illustrates the potential impact of improving material information in property listings when combined with our other proposals.

In summary, we estimate that first-time buyers (FTBs) would experience average net savings of £710 whilst home movers would on average save £400 per transaction.

Final sellers would on average see net costs rise by £310, which would be met with greater certainty of a successful transaction.

Fall through rates would reduce from 1 in 3 to 1 in 7, and transaction times would decrease by 4 weeks for buyers and 2 weeks for sellers.

About this consultation

This consultation document and consultation process have been planned to adhere to the Consultation Principles issued by the Cabinet Office.  

Representative groups are asked to give a summary of the people and organisations they represent, and where relevant who else they have consulted in reaching their conclusions when they respond. 

Information provided in response to this consultation may be published or disclosed in accordance with the access to information regimes (these are primarily the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and UK data protection legislation.  In certain circumstances this may therefore include personal data when required by law. 

If you want the information that you provide to be treated as confidential, please be aware that, as a public authority, the Department is bound by the information access regimes and may therefore be obliged to disclose all or some of the information you provide. In view of this it would be helpful if you could explain to us why you regard the information you have provided as confidential. If we receive a request for disclosure of the information we will take full account of your explanation, but we cannot give an assurance that confidentiality can be maintained in all circumstances. An automatic confidentiality disclaimer generated by your IT system will not, of itself, be regarded as binding on the Department. 

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government will at all times process your personal data in accordance with UK data protection legislation and in the majority of circumstances this will mean that your personal data will not be disclosed to third parties. A full privacy notice is included below. 

Individual responses will not be acknowledged unless specifically requested. 

Your opinions are valuable to us. Thank you for taking the time to read this document and respond. 

Are you satisfied that this consultation has followed the Consultation Principles?  If not or you have any other observations about how we can improve the process please contact us via the complaints procedure.

Personal data

The following is to explain your rights and give you the information you are entitled to under UK data protection legislation.  

Note that this section only refers to personal data (your name, contact details and any other information that relates to you or another identified or identifiable individual personally) not the content otherwise of your response to the consultation.  

1. The identity of the data controller and contact details of our Data Protection Officer     

MHCLG is the data controller. The Data Protection Officer can be contacted at dataprotection@communities.gov.uk or by writing to the following address:

Data Protection Officer,
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government,
Fry Building,
2 Marsham Street,
London,
SW1P 4DF

2. Why we are collecting your personal data    

Your personal data is being collected as an essential part of the consultation process, so that we can contact you regarding your response and for statistical purposes. We may also use it to contact you about related matters. 

We will collect your IP address if you complete a consultation online. We may use this to ensure that each person only completes a survey once. We will not use this data for any other purpose. 

Sensitive types of personal data 

Please do not share special category personal data or criminal offence data  if we have not asked for this unless absolutely necessary for the purposes of your consultation response. By ‘special category personal data’, we mean information about a living individual’s: 

• race 

• ethnic origin 

• political opinions 

• religious or philosophical beliefs 

• trade union membership 

• genetics 

• biometrics  

• health (including disability-related information) 

• sex life

• sexual orientation 

By ‘criminal offence data’, we mean information relating to a living individual’s criminal convictions or offences or related security measures.

3. Our legal basis for processing your personal data

The collection of your personal data is lawful under article 6(1)(e) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation as it is necessary for the performance by MHCLG of a task in the public interest/in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller.  Section 8(d) of the Data Protection Act 2018 states that this will include processing of personal data that is necessary for the exercise of a function of the Crown, a Minister of the Crown or a government department i.e. in this case a consultation. 

Where necessary for the purposes of this consultation, our lawful basis for the processing of any special category personal data or ‘criminal offence’ data (terms explained under ‘Sensitive Types of Data’) which you submit in response to this consultation is as follows. The relevant lawful basis for the processing of special category personal data is Article 9(2)(g) UK GDPR (‘substantial public interest’), and Schedule 1 paragraph 6 of the Data Protection Act 2018 (‘statutory etc and government purposes’). The relevant lawful basis in relation to personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences data is likewise provided by Schedule 1 paragraph 6 of the Data Protection Act 2018.

4. With whom we will be sharing your personal data

MHCLG may appoint a ‘data processor’, acting on behalf of the Department and under our instruction, to help analyse the responses to this consultation.  Where we do we will ensure that the processing of your personal data remains in strict accordance with the requirements of the data protection legislation.

5. For how long we will keep your personal data, or criteria used to determine the retention period

Your personal data will be held for 2 years from the closure of the consultation, unless we identify that its continued retention is unnecessary before that point.

6. Your rights, e.g. access, rectification, restriction, objection 

The data we are collecting is your personal data, and you have considerable say over what happens to it. You have the right: 

a. to see what data we have about you 

b. to ask us to stop using your data, but keep it on record 

c. to ask to have your data corrected if it is incorrect or incomplete 

d. to object to our use of your personal data in certain circumstances 

e. to lodge a complaint with the independent Information Commissioner (ICO) if you think we are not handling your data fairly or in accordance with the law.  You can contact the ICO at https://ico.org.uk/, or telephone 0303 123 1113.  

Please contact us at the following address if you wish to exercise the rights listed above, except the right to lodge a complaint with the ICO. Email dataprotection@communities.gov.uk or write to:

Knowledge and Information Access Team,
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government,
Fry Building,
2 Marsham Street,
London,
SW1P 4DF

7. Your personal data will not be sent overseas

8. Your personal data will not be used for any automated decision making 

9. Your personal data will be stored in a secure government IT system

We use a third-party system, Citizen Space, to collect consultation responses. In the first instance your personal data will be stored on their secure UK-based server. Your personal data will be transferred to our secure government IT system as soon as possible, and it will be stored there for 2 years before it is deleted.

1. 2025, Landmark Information Group, Transaction times rise despite slower market - research. ↩

2. Feb 2025 Landmark Information Group, Transaction times rise despite slower market - research. ↩

3. 2023, TPX Impact research for DLUHC, unpublished. ↩

4. Landmark’s Optimus Accelerate pilot orders searches on properties to be carried out immediately when the buyer or seller instructs their legal representative. This has increased the speed of the average transaction by 4 weeks. ↩

5. HM Land Registry launches new property data pilot. ↩