ASA Adjudication on SpicerHaart Group Ltd

Ad

A regional press ad for an estate agent depicted a pink heart with the words "Good Bye" written on it. Headline text stated "BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO". The word "HARD" had been crossed out and replaced with the word "easy". Text continued "Switch to haart without penalty”. Smaller text stated “If your current estate agent isn’t delivering, and you decide to leave them then ‘Switch’ to haart. We’ll smooth the way by settling any leaving fees or HIPs charges you might be liable for, up to £1000, until we sell your home, you withdraw your property from sale or for 9 months”.

Issue

A reader objected that the ad was misleading because it stated that the payments would only be deferred rather than absorbed by the advertisers, which they believed contradicted the claim about switching "without penalty".

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Spicer Haart said the intention of the ad was to highlight the practice whereby certain agents included hidden lock-in fees to prevent customers switching agents. They said the ad sought to explain that they assisted the customer to avoid the penalty of being locked-in to their current agent. They said the text at the foot of the ad clearly explained that Spicer Haart settled such lock-in fees until payment at a later date by the customer and they did not consider the ad to be misleading on that basis.

Assessment

Upheld

We noted the headline claim stated "Switch to haart without penalty". Although we acknowledged the smaller print stating "Well smooth the way by settling any leaving fees or HIPs charges you might be liable for, up to £1000, until we sell your home, you withdraw your property from sale or for 9 months", we considered that, because readers would still be liable for leaving fees, which Spicer Haart was offering to pay temporarily in order to enable people to switch estate agents, but not permanently, the headline claim was contradicted by the qualifying text. We concluded that the ad was likely to mislead.

The ad breached CAP Code clause 7.1 (Truthfulness).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)