Property portals and estate agents are failing buyers of leasehold properties by not flagging up legally required, critical information, a new survey has found.
HomeOwners Alliance reviewed 150 leasehold property listings across Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket and found that less than two-thirds (62%) mentioned service charges and less than half (49%) included details of ground rent, while only a small minority (9%) included the date of the next ground rent review.
A quarter (24%) of listings did not include an Energy Performance Certificate rating and only two-thirds (66%) included the council tax band.
However, the survey found that 94% of listings stated whether a property was leasehold or freehold, and 78% included the number of years left on the lease, a major improvement since it last conducted a similar survey in 2016.
HomeOwners Alliance also found a number of listings overlooked Building Safety Act issues; only nine out of 45 high-rise property listings made reference to having an EWS1 certificate which is required by lenders.
Trading Standards issued detailed guidance in 2023 after it found that agents were not complying with the Consumer Protection against Unfair Trading Regulations.
Commenting on the findings, Paula Higgins, CEO of HomeOwners Alliance, says homeowners shouldn’t have to wait until they are three months down the line and have spent hundreds on legal fees and surveys, to find the ground rent is due to double, the house will cost more to heat than their current home, and they can’t get a mortgage because of cladding.
A Zoopla spokesperson tells LandlordZONE that it has invested in changes to its systems that allow agents to supply this additional data and display it to consumers, empowering them to make better home-moving decisions. She adds: “The coverage of this material information has improved substantially over this time.”
A Rightmove spokesman adds: “The vast majority of listings do include information from Material Information Part A, with continued progress being made on Parts B & C. We are encouraging agents to include as much information from the new fields as possible, but we also recognise challenges in collecting some of this data, and with the many and varied software systems that agents use.”
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