But NTSELAT has now revealed a new document called The Case for Change: Improving Provision of Material Information In Property Sales and Lettings.

In addition it has produced the results of a survey of people who have moved in the last three years or are looking to move in the next three years. The survey shows that:

– 90 per cent of respondents who use portals would prefer to find detailed or key information about a property when they’re searching on a portal;

– 87 per cent of respondents agree that portals should include all key information about a home in their listing;

– More than half said that they would be less likely to buy or rent where information was missing on the property listing;

– 40 per cent of respondents assume that missing information means something wrong with the property.

The pressure for ‘more info sooner’ appears to be building on portals, which in turn will be expecting agents to do the heavy lifting.

Rightmove’s Legal & Compliance Director David Cox says: “The information that agents need to find out before marketing a property varies so much depending on the type of home, and so we support the drive to provide clear industry-wide guidance on basic material information.

“Unlike price and number of bedrooms which is already available on all listings, there are some features that aren’t displayed in every case, such as tenure, and so we’d like to hear from agents about what challenges they face in collecting this type of information.

“Once a list is finalised we can help by explaining to prospective sellers and landlords what information they should already be starting to gather when they are thinking of coming to market, and help buyers and tenants understand what’s in the list and why.”