Big estate agency removes listing pictures after complaint
Haart, which is part of Spicerhaart Group, reached an informal agreement with the Advertising Standards Authority to remove some old photos of a property.
Estate agency Haart has agreed to remove photos from a property listing after a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
The complainant claimed the images were misleading because they didn’t show the current condition of the property.
The ASA raised the issue with Haart, which is part of the Spicerhaart Group, and the estate agency responded by saying that the pictures were from a previous listing to protect the privacy of the sitting tenant.
Haart then agreed to take the pictures down until they could replace them with more recent photographs, and the ASA closed the case having reached an informal agreement.
Challenged
A spokesman for the ASA says: “We received a complaint about an online property listing, seen on the Haart website. The complainant challenged whether the ad was misleading as the images used did not reflect the current state of the property.
“We approached the advertiser with the concerns that had been raised. They explained that the property was recently rented out and they had used images from a previous listing to protect the tenants’ privacy,” he says.
“The advertiser provided their assurance that the images would be removed until updates to the property had been completed. On that basis we considered the matter resolved.”
Another complaint
Last year, North West of England agency Town & Country also reached an informal agreement the 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.
