From 31 May 2022, all estate agent websites and property portals need to start including Part A ‘material information’ on their UK residential property listings and from 30 November 2023, information pertaining to Parts B and C should also be included.

These changes are in line with new guidance set by National Trading Standards, who want to increase clarity for consumers on the properties they’re looking to buy or rent.

‘Material information’ is defined as the information an average consumer needs to make an informed transactional decision. National Trading Standards state that in the case of buying or renting a property, a ‘transactional decision’ includes the decision to view a property, as well as the decision to buy or rent one.

Full National Trading Standards Material Information guidance is available here. 

This article includes:

• What needs to be included in property listings under the guidance?
• Adding/updating property listings
• FAQs

What needs to be included in property listings under the guidance?

The guidance has been introduced in three stages, referred to as Part A, Part B and Part C.

The list below shows the information that needs to be provided where applicable to comply with the guidelines. 

(Full information on each stage is available here)

Adding/updating property listings

Estate agents are responsible for submitting material information on all new and existing UK residential property listings. You’ll need to include it along with the property listings information you already share with us.

Within Expert Agent, we've made some updates to the fields on property records where you can add/update all the required ‘Part A' information, ensuring your property listings remain compliant.

Sales

Lettings

FAQs

We’ve also pulled together a list of frequently asked questions to help you get to grips with the new requirements:

• What other changes are in the pipeline?

We're not aware of any further changes at the moment but we'll update you if that changes.  

• What if I don’t have all the material information yet? Can I still list a property?

National Trading Standards requires all information to be available from 30th November 2023. While we don't have any plans to de-list properties, National Trading Standards may get in touch with you if your listings don't comply with the new guidance.

• Will Zoopla de-list my property if any information is missing?

We don’t have any plans to de-list properties, but National Trading Standards may get in touch with you if your listings don’t comply with the new guidance.

Multiple tenants (or landlords) need to be added as separate entities to a tenancy or property in order for you to be able to obtain a signature from both parties. This means that rather than adding them as applicant one and applicant two on one applicant record for example, you need to create separte records for both parties.

Please click here for the link to our training video on setting up multiple tenants on a property which will then work correctly with eSigning and enable you to send eSignatures to both email addresses for tenancy agreements. 

For Vendors, you need to ensure that you have completed both Vendor One and Vendor Two contact details, including an email address for both. If you only have one email address for them, you can enter the same address in both fields for Vendor One and Vendor Two.

It's also worth noting that you only need to include the one merge code in your document, regardless of how many tenants you have. For example, if you have two tenants that you are sending your document to for eSignature, you would only enter the merge code for "applicant esignature block" once into the document. This one merge code will then pull all the signatures for tenants who have eSigned the document through into the one space for you. if you put the merge code in twice, you will end up with duplicate signatures.

Where do I record the expiry date for my EICRs?

This is managed in the same way you manage your Gas Safety Certificates, the most important thing is that you ensure you have filled in the electrical safety expiry date field on the dates tab of the property record. Please Click Here for more information on storing these.

How can I check that all my let properties have an EICR?

We have some Quicklinks to help you with this under both the tenancy and property sections. You can add the tenancy Quicklink for "office tenancies without an electrical safety" to your right hand tool bar or your tenancies dashboard. You can find more information about adding Quicklinks by Clicking Here. This Quicklink will show you any pending, reserved or let tenancies where the property does not have an EICR expiry date entered. This is a good Quicklink to use for checking on any electrical safety reports that may need to arrange ahead of the April 2021 deadline as it will show you active tenancies that do not have the required certificate. Similarly, if you are working with properties, you can view the "office properties without an electrical safety" property Quicklink.

How can I see my EICRs that are coming up for renewal?

From your top properties menu, you can view the safety check expiries grid.

This grid allows you to view, report and export to CSV your properties with checks that are due.

Please Click Here for more information on using this area.

Filtering your grids and creating Saved Selections for your EICRs

Along with using the safety checks expiries grid, there are Quicklinks available specifically for your electrical safety checks that are due (due within the next 31 days or overdue). You can add these Quicklinks to either the right hand tool bar under the Properties section or to your Properties Dashboard. 

You can also create your own saved selections starting from an unfiltered property grid to save you having to re-filter the grid each time you want to view the same set of data. From the property grid, once you have chosen your columns and placed the relevant filters in terms of department, status etc, you can filter on properties that do not have a date in the "electrical safety expiry" column, ones that are overdue, due in a certain number of days etc depending on your preference. You may need to add this column into your grid if you've never used it before, you can do this by using the  Column Picker. Once you have the column in your grid, clicking the calendar icon in that column will allow you to select the relevant date range you are interested in. Please Click Here for more information on creating saved selections. 

If you need to print out a report from either a Quicklink or a saved selection, you can do this by right clicking from the grid - outputs - create report. You will need to ensure you have a report template set up prior to running the report. We have created a new report template "EA - Electrical Check Due Report" accessible under the Expert Agent Default Letters tab that you can use or clone across to your Our Letters and make any amendments to. For help on editing report templates, please Click Here

Does Expert Agent provide me with any letters for arranging my EICRs?

Expert Agent doesn't directly provide you with any compliant letters but if you subscribe to the compliant letters and agreements pack, The Letting Centre will be including these letters within the pack as part of their 2021 update along with changes to the tenancy agreements, agency agreement and property checklists to accommodate the legislation changes. If you don't yet subscribe to the compliant letters and agreements pack but you would like to, you can arrange this here. If you subscribe already, keep an eye on your Alerts! section for details of when the pack has been updated.

How can I manage the booking in and carrying out of my EICRs?

You can book your contractors in to carry our EICRs, manage the visit to the property and ensure you are chasing up invoices via your Expert Agent maintenance section. Please Click Here to visit the maintenance chapter.

How do I charge landlords for the EICRs once I have the invoice from the contractor?

You need to be using Expert Agent financials to do this. You will do it by creating a purchase invoice on the landlord account which you can view more information by Clicking Here.