Rightmove is today adding a disclaimer to all its rental adverts.
The move follows last week’s bombshell ruling from the Advertising Standards Authority that Your Move – and by implication, all letting agents – must detail fees in their adverts. It will no longer be enough simply to show rent when a property is advertised, with the ASA saying that this is misleading.
Whether Rightmove's new disclaimer will, on its own, be enough to satisfy the advertising watchdog is currently unclear. However, agents will be able to include the actual fees they charge into individual listings on Rightmove.
Rightmove has until now explicitly banned letting agents from showing fees in their listings. This too therefore changes from today.
So far, none of the membership bodies nor the Property Ombudsman has yet issued detailed advice on how agents should deal with the fees issue.
Only UKALA has so far expressed an opinion, with executive Caroline Kenny saying that including fees in adverts is not feasible for most agents.
Rightmove itself has now advised agents as follows: “You may be aware of the recent Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruling that non-optional tenant fees and charges should be made clear in all adverts when not included in the quoted price.
“The exact format of what is acceptable remains unclear and would appear to depend on the type and applicability of the tenant fees you charge.
“We will be adding the following disclaimer to all rental properties on Rightmove as of Thursday, 14th March: ‘Administration fees may apply when renting a property in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. For more details, please contact the agent.’
“However, we recommend that you take appropriate advice to ensure that you comply with the ASA ruling given the specific charging model you have adopted.
“Should you wish to display further detail on applicable fees, these can be included on the property’s details page within the ‘free text’ summary description on Rightmove.
“If you upload your properties to Rightmove using Rightmoveplus and have any questions about how to include this additional text within a property’s details section, please contact your account manager.
“If you upload your properties to Rightmove using a datafeed and have any questions, please contact your software provider.”
Comments
Funny how a lot of agents on here moan about RM about fees whenever they can but as soon as they want guidance on an important industry change like this, they're looking to RM for something but then criticise RM for what they've done. Why is nobody talking about Zoopla's position on this? I thought you'd all been saying that Zoopla were giving you more leads than RM and we should all come off RM and defect over to Zoopla?!
@Ray
Probably because no-one has complained against them Ray.
I have seen something from David Smith I think saying that sols have to publish by Law Society pronouncement?
Question.
Not withstanding the pro's and con's of this "ruling" and if it is legal or not, if according to the ASA, property sales and letting agents are supposed to show fees why does this not apply to solicitors, accountants, banks etc. ?
@ It's on us not RM
Why the aggression when we seem to be agreeing. If RM do as you say and don't mind reams of text in the if the ASA agree that is a high visibility enough method and solution using the "free text" page then there is no problem.
Question is whether having to go and find the fees, as opposed to having them smack you in the face as part of an advert, is good enough to satisfy ASA.
I have my doubts, and if you have read the full decison and also looked at the Painsmith blog you might have such doubts as well. This is why the Counsel opinion ARLA is apparently seeking is so important.
If I am wrong then I'll be the first to celebrate an easier life. But based on visibility and what CoA wanted in terms of DPS T&Cs I have my doubts.
Just calm down and watch the blood pressure friend I think this ruling is as daft as the next guy.
I was really surprised by the fact that rightmove apparently bans fees from being listed on the adverts. We have been in business for 6 years and we have always displayed our tenant fees on each property advert, and so all of our competitors (apart from chancellors). And this is after having had lots of conversations and occasional visits from rightmove support discussing the best way to layout our details.
Not once have they told me the fees were bad, clearly what head office (and RMs biggest clients) want is not that important to the staff at the coal face.
The real reason the big boys don't like putting fees out there is because they will be variable according to area and brand. Countrywide probably has different fees between branches, even when they are in the same brand simply because of the costs involved in doing business.
This is not a matter of good or bad, it just is doing business trouble is a lot of negotiators have not needed to have the skills to justify the costs. After all once a tenant is invested in a property they are going to pay whatever.
Rightmove - “Should you wish to display further detail on applicable fees, these can be included on the property’s details page within the ‘free text’ summary description on Rightmove"
Dial it down IO, Michael Edwards explained it perfectly, agents are responsible for showing their fees and as you can see from the above RM are now allowing it. Hardly 'bouncing' it back so you might want to check your rear view mirror before pulling out...
No doubt RM will eventually have a whole page dedicated to fees that agents will have to complete before the system allows an upload. Meantime we've been given the ability to include the fees ourselves on the details page and therefore we've been given the ability to meet the ASA requirement.
No excuses now...
@Michael and Ray
Ray
Apologies if all do not know of the ARLA Counsel position no reason why I alone should know I thought it was in the first e-letter ARLA issued lesyt Monday was it when this first broke?
Michael
Of course you are right in one sense. But the point is if the fees have to be shown in the advert then RM has a choice of two.
Either they somehow show the fees as along the lines of my suggestion and I fail to see why a "This is the standard fees charged by this Agent" box or whetever should be so difficult to set up.
Or they do not accept adverts fro the agent because the agent has to show the fees in their property adverts, and a portal is simply an electronic means of advertising properties - isn't it?
I have crossed swords with the ASA on advert content (and OFT on contract clause content) and know just how wide ranging they regard their decisions and their application as being - and it is very wide.
The ASA one will be all forms of marketing. I agree with you on reflection it is the advertisers duty to make the fees known but if they cannot do so in a RM advert other than RM bouncing it back to the agent how can the agent be complying with the ASA obligation in the first instance as they have to.
We had an email from Arla a few days ago to say that they were on the case, and then this yesterday:
Dear Member,
Just to let you know that ARLA have had some progress on the issue of guidance. We have been working continuously to get further information and are now advised that CAP (Committee of Advertising Practice), who produce guidance on ASA decisions will provide advice in the next few weeks, although we know this may not come as quickly as you would all like. OFT are also looking at the issue of transparency on fees and ARLA will work in an effort to ensure that there is no contradiction in this guidance.
ARLA is aware that Painsmith have made comment on their blog site www.painsmith.co.uk. Dean Wilson has written some guidance, which you can read here. We are also aware that other legal advice may vary and any member who is unsure and wishes to take independent legal advice prior to the guidance being available is advised to do so.
We are also aware, and will be responding to the OFT on fees where they are questioning the variance, not so much of value of fees but the complexity of the fee menu provided by agents.
Once again as soon as clarification is obtained ARLA will communicate this to you. We are sorry that we cannot be definitive but in such matters it is difficult to do so without causing members to take a course of action which could turn out to be wrong or at best misleading.
Yours Sincerely,
Ian C. Potter FARLA FRICS
Managing Director ARLA
@Industry Observer on 2013-03-14 08:35:30
Agreed. But ARLA could at least let their members know what they are in the process of doing! It is typical of their attitude in recent years.
A helpful post by "Industry Observer" but RM are not responsible for complying with the ASA decision it is individual LAs who are liable to provide full disclosure of fees at the time of advertising a property. I suspect RM took advice when composing the disclaimer in their position as an advertising portal not a Letting Agent.
@rhys1
ARLA is taking Counsel opinion - do you have any idea how long that normally takes to obtain? Start guessing at a week at least and you won't be too far out.
But don't hold your breath. No-one can possibly afford to take the risk of giving carte blanche "you can safely ignore this ruling" advice.
The cost to their PI would be unsustainable
No the disclaimer won't do and Right Move surely must know that if they read the actual decision in full. It specifically states that phrases like "fees will apply" and "contact us for details" in effect "we'll tell you later" will not be sufficient.
The decision specifically said that the fees themselves had to be displayed or, if the specific amount was unknown, clear detail as to how the eventual fee, if charged, would be calculated.
What does RM consider to be a "non optional tenant fee" - is this one where the tenant volunteers to pay?
All fees fall into two categories, vnever mind timing as to when they actually apply.
There are compulsory fees charged no matter what happens - initial application fees, inventory fees, check-in, check-out etc etc
Then there are fees that arise during and after the tenancy according to how the tenancy has been conducted. This would be those chargeable only if something happens that shouldn't, such as bounced cheques, arrears letters charges (don't go there), fancy fees if the tenancy goes periodic, fees for tenants leaving early etc etc.
What is a non optional fee can RM please give an example?
As I posted elsewhere earlier this week don't do the usual and waste time and energuy (and money) woorking out how to get round this ruling, just work out the least painful way of complying.
Can someone please explain to me why RM cannot carry an agent's tarioff of fees as a one off but constantly displayed feature of any advert as and when one appears? Or is that just too easy and obvious?
Don't get me wrong I think this ruling is as daft as everyone else does - but for RM to say they are going to publish some sort of disclaimer telling a visitor to contact the agent is ridiculous when it is the actual advert that has to carry the information.
If RM are doing this on legal advice my suggestion would be to change solicitors.
Still no opinion from Arla I see.....who is it they're supposed to be representing???