ASA Adjudication on Bartrop & Dilks Property Services Ltd

Bartrop & Dilks Property Services Ltd

78 Bridge Street
Worksop
Nottinghamshire
S80 1JA

Date:

15 February 2012

Media:

Circular

Sector:

Property

Number of complaints:

Complaint Ref:

A11-177787

Two circular ads and a website ad:

a. A circular for an estate agent, seen on 8 December, stated "SOLD ON YOUR STREET [address]. ANOTHER SALE AGREED BY BARTROP & DILKS". Further text stated "We have become Worksop's Leading Estate Agent having 32.56% of the market share based on 'Most Homes Sold' registered online in S80 and S81 in 2011. Why choose any other agent in Worksop?".

b. A circular for an estate agent, seen on 8 December, stated "SOLD ON YOUR STREET [address]. ANOTHER SALE AGREED BY BARTROP & DILKS". Further text stated "We have become Worksop's Leading Estate Agent having 30.69% of the market share based on 'Most Homes Sold' registered online in S80 and S81 in 2011. Why choose any other agent in Worksop?".

c. An estate agent's website, seen on www.bartropanddilks.co.uk on 4 January 2012, was headed "Agent of Choice". A downloadable image was displayed which was headed "Worksop's Leading Estate Agent with Most Homes Sold registered online in S80 & S81 in 2011*" Further text stated "It's official, After just over three years since we opened, we are now pleased to announce we have become Worksop's Leading Estate Agent having 35.68% of the market share based on 'Most Homes Sold' registered online in 2011*". Small text at the foot of the ad stated "*Based on an Independent survey of property website [sic] undertaken by Vizzihome, the independent industry market research provider. Properties are sold subject to contract or under offer. The number of properties registered as sold does not necessarily equate to completed sales. The survey was taken from 07-01-2011 to 29-04-2011 ... There may be other Companies/Offices which exceed these figures but do not publish their data on the internet. Information is sourced from estate agency internet data, portals and individual websites and collated and published by Vizzihome. For further information please see [website]".

Issue

David Hawke Property Services objected that the claim "Worksop's Leading Estate Agent" made in ads (a), (b) and (c) was misleading.

CAP Code (Edition 12)

3.13.33.383.7

Response

Bartrop & Dilks Property Services Ltd (Bartrop & Dilks) did not believe they had distributed the leaflet ads to properties on the date specified in ads (a) and (b). They said the leaflets had previously been used by their company but had not been distributed for at least six months. They said they had checked with all staff members and had been assured that no one had distributed the leaflets. They said they had put procedures in place so that in future only certain staff members were able to print their leaflet ads. They said they did not intend to use these leaflets or the claim "Worksop's leading estate agent" in future.

Bartrop & Dilks said they had left the downloadable image that included the claim "Worksop's leading estate agent" on their website in ad (c) in error after assuring the ASA on an earlier date that they would not use this claim. They removed the claim from their website.

Assessment

Upheld in relation to ad (c)

The ASA noted that David Hawke Property Services (David Hawke) believed the claim "Worksop's Leading Estate Agent" was misleading because it was based on internet data which excluded estate agents who did not make their sold data available online. We also noted that Bartrop & Dilks said they had not distributed the leaflets seen by the complainants at the time we received their complaint. However, we were concerned that, despite a previous assurance that they would not use the claim "Worksop's Leading Estate Agent", the claim had been used since, albeit in error. We noted the website stated "There may be other Companies/Offices which exceed these figures but do not publish their data on the internet" and that the claim was based on "'Most Homes Sold' registered online in 2011" but considered this insufficient to qualify the claim to be "leading". We concluded that, because the data it was based on excluded competitors who did not make their sold data available online, the claim "Worksop's Leading Estate Agent" was misleading.

The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.38 (Other comparisons).

Action

We told Bartrop & Dilks not to claim to be "leading" unless they held robust evidence that this was the case.

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