Property

What a letting agent legally has to show on its website

Fees, redress scheme, Client Money Protection. Most independent agency websites we look at are missing at least one, which is a Trading Standards exposure as well as a conversion problem.

Gerard Mensah · Mensah Labs · 8 min read

This one comes up constantly. An independent agency gets a website built, it looks smart, and it publishes none of the three things the law requires it to publish. Nobody involved was being careless. The person who built the site did not know, and the agent assumed the builder did.

The three things

Under section 83 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, a letting agent in England must publicise all three of the following — both at any premises where they deal with people face to face, and on their website if they have one.

1. A full list of relevant fees

Not "fees on application." An actual list, with enough description that the person paying understands what service or cost each fee covers. It has to state the amount including any applicable tax, or, where the amount cannot be worked out in advance, how the fee is calculated.

For tenant-facing fees it also has to say whether the fee applies per dwelling or per tenant. That distinction matters to somebody sharing a flat with three other people, and leaving it out is a common miss.

Separately, remember the Tenant Fees Act 2019 banned most fees to tenants in England outright. If your published list still shows referencing fees or admin fees charged to tenants, you have a bigger problem than the display requirement.

2. Whether you are a member of a Client Money Protection scheme

Since 1 April 2019, agents in England who hold client money have had to belong to an approved CMP scheme. You have to say whether you hold client money and name the scheme.

The certificate needs to be available at your offices and online, and if your membership is revoked or you change scheme you have to tell your clients within fourteen days.

The penalty here is the one to pay attention to: up to £30,000 for failing to belong to a scheme. A local authority has to serve a notice of intent within six months of discovering the breach, and give you 28 days to respond before issuing a final penalty notice.

3. The name of your redress scheme

Letting and property management agents in England must belong to a government-approved redress scheme — in practice The Property Ombudsman or the Property Redress Scheme. You have to name it and confirm you are a member.

This is the one people most often assume is covered by a logo in the footer. A logo on its own is not a statement of membership, and a logo that links nowhere is worse than none.

Where it should sit on the site

The legislation says the fee list has to be somewhere it is "likely to be seen." On a website, that means:

• A dedicated fees page, linked from the main navigation, not buried in a PDF and not hidden behind a form.
• A line in the footer of every page naming your redress scheme and your CMP scheme, with links to both.
• A link from your landlord page and your tenant page straight to the fees, because that is where somebody is when the question occurs to them.

Do not put it behind a cookie banner, a chat widget, or a "download our guide" form. If somebody has to give you their email address to find out what you charge, it is not published.

The part nobody expects: it converts

Agents resist publishing fees because they think it invites price shopping. In our experience the opposite happens, for a reason that has nothing to do with compliance.

A landlord comparing three agencies, where two say "fees on application" and one publishes a clear list, has already learned something about all three.

The one that publishes looks confident. The two that do not look like they are going to be difficult. And the landlord who was never going to pay your rate filters themselves out before they take an hour of your time on a valuation.

You also pick up search traffic. "Letting agent fees" and "[your area] letting agent fees" are things people actually type. If you have no page that answers it, you cannot appear.

A five-minute audit of your own site

1. Open your site in a private browsing window, as a stranger would.
2. From the homepage, can you reach a full fee list in two clicks or fewer, without giving anybody your email address?
3. Does that list say what each fee is for, and whether tenant-facing fees are per property or per tenant?
4. Is your redress scheme named in words, not just as a logo, and does the link work?
5. Is your CMP scheme named, with the certificate available?
6. Do the same on your phone. A fee table that needs sideways scrolling on mobile is not readable.

If you find gaps, fixing them is usually an afternoon of work, not a rebuild. It is also the cheapest risk you will remove this year.