Information for estate agents - property descriptions
(for Scotland)
Enter your postcode in the field at the bottom of this page to see if your local authority trading standards department has the full leaflet version available on its website.
In England estate agents will sell most domestic properties, but in Scotland the situation is vastly different, with a variety of different sellers engaged in the selling of domestic property. There are specific legislative requirements which govern the sale of domestic properties. The Property Misdescriptions Act 1991, which controls property developers as well as estate agents, creates criminal offences for making false or misleading statements about any of the matters in the Specified Matters Order.
Also the new Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 now prohibit omitting material information from consumers if that omission might cause the consumer to make a different decision. Care should be taken when applying descriptions to ensure they are accurate; this includes written and verbal descriptions, photographs, information about measurements, parking spaces, communal areas and planning permission matters, etc.
