New Advertising Guidance for Landlords

If, for whatever reason you are not using our brilliant team at Stuarts Residential, and have decided to try to rent your house privately, beware of new guidance (covering England and Wales) issued by National Trading Standards.

This guidance centres around something called Material Information which comes off the back of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. As a landlord you are seen to be a business even if you are just letting Aunt Joan’s old bungalow. Prospective tenants are your consumer so you are very much caught up by this.

What is material information? 

According to the regulations, Material Information (MI) is ‘The information which the average consumer needs, according to the context, to take an informed transactional decision’.

This covers a wide range of information so the new guidance helps to provide some clarity for Letting Agents and Landlords.

The guidance is broken down into Parts A, B and C and has been introduced in phases (Part A came into force back in the summer of 2022). Parts B & C were introduced at the beginning of December 2023.

Part A & B 

The minimum information that needs to be provided in these parts include:

• Asking rent
• Deposit amount
• Council Tax banding
• Physical characteristics of the property
• Number and type of rooms (including measurements)
• Information for utilities supply and connection
• Parking arrangements

Part C 

In this part, information only needs to be provided if the property is affected by any of the issues:

• Building safety
• Restrictions, rights and easements
• Restrictive covenants
• Flooding
• Planning permission or applications in locality
• Accessibility adaptations
• Coal or mining in the area

How do I display this?

There are specific rules around where this information must be shown on your advertising. Adverts include those on social media, websites or even a notice in your parish magazine.

Keep in mind too that there are the current additional requirements such as showing EPC bandings.

National Trading Standards have made it clear that they will be looking to strictly enforce this over the coming months so it is important to make sure you are compliant.

As accredited, trained and experienced agents we can help you navigate your way through this and all your other legal requirements – get in touch with us today! 

Please note the date this article was published as the law or the essence may have changed since it was posted. You should always seek independent legal advice if you are intending to rely on any of the contents. Unless stated otherwise this article only reflects the position for the Private Rented Sector in England and therefore may not apply to other countries within the United Kingdom.