Estate agency agrees to change misleading ads after complaint
Town & Country Estate Agents will ensure future adverts make it clear if a property has a leasehold or freehold title.
NW of England agency Town & Country has reached an informal agreement with the Advertising Standards Authority(ASA) after a complaint about one of its ads.
The ASA had received a complaint that a property was advertised on Rightmove as freehold when it was in fact leasehold.
Misleading
Ads on the Rightmove app and website said the property in Chester was a ‘Tenure freehold’, and the unnamed complainant said they were misleading.
ASA says: “Town and Country told us that had received confirmation that it was a freehold property. The seller had purchased the freehold.”
Not updated
But Land Registry had not completed the paperwork, and the freehold title had not been updated.
The seller’s solicitor provided Town and Country with documents showing the part transfer of the registered title, and this confirmed the date that the seller had purchased the freehold.
Matter closed
“Town and Country provided assurance that future ads will contain important information about the registration of the title, if, for example, it has not yet been officially registered.
“As such, we considered the matter closed,” the ASA says.
Town & Country has branches in Chester (main picture), Wrexham and Oswestry, dealing with sales and lettings. The company also runs property auctions.
Expansion plans
In 2022, The Neg reported company plans to expand its auctions business into eight new territories including London, Birmingham, Herts/Beds/Bucks, Devon, Cornwall, Cumbria, Liverpool/The Wirral and Cheshire/Staffordshire/Shropshire.
To coincide with the expansion push, the firm rebranded and re-launched its online platform backed by a major auctions tech provider.
Picture: Google Street View
So the owner has paid for the freehold and the conveyance has been done. Just the land registry hadn’t completed the registration. How absolutely ridiculous! Of it’s freehold. If you buy a car, pay for it and are given a receipt you own it whether or not the DVLA have completed their paperwork. I’m intrigued. If the flat owner didn’t own the freehold at that point are they trying to say that it was still owned by the previous freeholder? Clearly not! This is someone just trying to use the recent change in material information to get at an agent. Probably asked for compensation if they didn’t go the the authorities with it. Much the same as happened after the Property Misdescription Act came in. I’d hope the authorities look dimly on these sort of complaints and take a common sense approach as they seem to have here.