"Homeowners shouldn’t have to wait until they are three months down the line, 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"
- Paula Higgins - HomeOwners Alliance
The Homeowners alliance has analysed 150 leasehold property listings across the 3 main portals - Rightmove, Zoopla and OntheMarket and found:
Leasehold
94% of listings state whether property was leasehold or freehold, and 78% included the number of years left on the lease, a major improvement since we last looked at this in 2016.
62% mention service charges, 49% include details of ground rent and just 9% include the date of the next ground rent review.
Poor performance on energy and council tax
24% of listings did not include an Energy Performance Certificate rating, despite being a legal requirement since 2013.
66% of listings included the council tax band, despite this being required for all listings. London listings were less likely to feature council tax (55%) than in Manchester (77%).
‘Overlooking’ Building Safety Act issues
Only 9 out of 45 high-rise property listings referred to having an EWS1 certificate which lenders require.
At most only 5% of listings include details about accessibility and restrictions on the property.
Comparing the portals
Zoopla and OnTheMarket’s listings tended to be more comprehensive than Rightmove. For example, 86% of Zoopla’s listings and 78% of OnTheMarket listings included the number of years remaining on the lease, compared with 70% on Rightmove.
Realising that estate agents were not complying with the Consumer Protection against Unfair Trading Regulations (CPRs), the National Trading Standards Estate Agency and Lettings Team (NTSELAT) issued guidance in November 2023 around the ‘material information’ estate agents need to include on property listings. One year later, the organisation decided to do a spot check of leasehold properties for sale to see how things had improved for consumers.
The report, What Buyers Need to Know? reviewed 150 leasehold property listings in London and Manchester across the three main portals - Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket.
"We know location, price and parking are up there as the top things people look for when buying a home," explained Paula Higgins CEO of HomeOwners Alliance, "But very quickly after that, we want to know about any potential deal-breakers: Is it a flat with only a few years left on the lease or sky high service charges? Is there cladding which means we’ll struggle to get a mortgage and could face unfair costs? Is there a poor energy rating that means the house costs double what it should to run?
Paula concluded: "So the industry’s move to do more in providing information that could materially impact our decision to buy a home is very welcome. But a year on, the picture is still patchy and simply not good enough. Homeowners shouldn’t have to wait until they are three months down the line, 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.”
