How we research and check what we publish
The rules every page on this site is written to, and what we do when the evidence runs out.
On this page
The short answer
We write from primary sources: legislation, regulators, redress schemes, official registers and companies' own published terms. Every figure is dated and linked to its source. A named company gets a chance to respond before a critical finding about it is published, and no company can pay to be included, ranked or left out.
Selling a home involves large sums and decisions that are hard to undo. A page that is wrong, out of date or secretly paid for can cost a reader thousands of pounds. Our rules exist to stop that happening, and to make sure that when we do get something wrong, you can see it and we can fix it.
Which sources we trust first
The most authoritative source that answers the question comes first, and the page says which kind of source it is.
- 01 Law and official records Legislation, court and tribunal decisions, HMRC manuals, government guidance, Companies House and official registers.
- 02 Regulators and redress schemes Enforcement bodies such as the National Trading Standards estate agency team, the Competition and Markets Authority and the Information Commissioner, and the redress schemes’ own rules.
- 03 What a company publishes about itself Its terms, fee tables and contracts, used for what the company says it does. Labelled as the company’s statement
- 04 Trade bodies and published surveys Acceptable for market figures. Labelled with who ran the survey, when, the sample if stated, and whether the publisher sells the thing the survey is about
- 05 Press reports Only where nothing primary exists, and we say so.
Legal points are scoped to the part of the UK they cover, because England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland often differ.
Dates on everything
Every source in a page's list shows the date we read it, and every page shows the date it was last updated. Fees, timescales and rules change, so a figure without a date cannot be relied on.
When two sources give different figures for the same thing, we print both as a range with both sources and explain the difference if we can. We do not pick the one that suits the argument.
Overlapping figures are never added together, and a missing figure is never treated as zero. If a company does not publish its fee, the fee is unknown, not free.
How we label a fact
Facts about a company or a route, especially in tables, each carry one of five states. The label tells you how far you can rely on the fact.
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Verified | Confirmed against an official or primary source, which is cited, on the date shown. |
| Company-stated | The company says this in its own published material. No source outside the company confirms it. |
| Unknown | We looked and could not find it. Unknown is not the same as no, zero or free. |
| Disputed | Sources disagree, or the company disputes our finding. We show both positions and their sources. |
| Not applicable | The question does not apply to this company or route, with the reason where it is not obvious. |
No figure on this site is a valuation of your home. Prices used in worked examples and charts are illustrative and labelled as such, and our calculators work only on the figures you enter or on published ones.
Legal and tax points
Some pages cover decisions where a mistake could cost a reader money through a legal, tax, contract, tenancy or structural question. Those pages are written from the legislation, official guidance and published terms listed under them, and they say where a point depends on your own circumstances.
They are a guide to what the rules say and the questions to ask, not advice for your situation. Where the answer turns on your circumstances, the page tells you to take advice from a solicitor, licensed conveyancer, surveyor or accountant. We never invent a reviewer or a qualification.
Right of reply
Before we publish a critical finding about a named company, we put the finding to the company in writing and give it time to respond. A reply is considered, anything it shows to be wrong is corrected, and the company's position is reported fairly next to the finding. If no reply comes, we say when we asked.
Findings stay within documented facts, with their source and date. A company that does not appear on a register under the name we searched is described in exactly those terms.
Corrections
To report an error, use contact and give the page and, if you can, the source that shows the correct position. We check the claim against the primary source. Where we were wrong, we correct the page and update its date. If the correction changes a figure, a finding or advice a reader may have acted on, the page also notes what changed and when. A finding is never rewritten without saying so.
A company that disagrees with a finding goes through the same process. Disagreement alone does not change a page; evidence does.
Review ratings, and the law on fake reviews
When we report what customers say about a company, a platform's score is given as a dated fact about that platform, and nothing more. Different platforms often show different pictures of the same firm.
How we report customer reviews
- Name the platform, the score, the number of reviews and the date we read it Always, next to the score.
- Treat one platform’s score as a verdict on the company A score is a fact about that platform, not a verdict.
- Merge several platforms into one number of our own Each platform’s score is reported on its own.
- Publish reviews written for us, or give anything in return for one We publish none, and offer nothing for a review.
- Pick quotes to make a company look better or worse than its reviews as a whole Quotes are not chosen to tilt the picture either way.
The law shapes how we do this. Since 6 April 2025 the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 has prohibited unfair commercial practices, and it lists practices that are unfair in all circumstances.1 Those include submitting or commissioning fake reviews, concealing that a review was incentivised, and presenting consumer reviews in a misleading way.2 The Competition and Markets Authority's guidance explains what businesses that publish reviews must do to comply.3
Platform scores are reported without any claim that they prove quality. Our own company reviews, collected at provider reviews, are our research rather than consumer reviews, and are labelled that way.
Public registers
Where a page reports what a public register shows about a company, it names the register, the name searched and the date. HMRC's own register of businesses supervised for anti-money-laundering purposes is the one that matters most for house-buying companies and auction firms, because HMRC's guidance says a business that receives enquiries from sellers and passes them on is within the regulations.5
HMRC also says a business may appear under a different name from the one people know, and that new registrations can take time to appear.4 So a name we cannot find is never, on its own, a finding. We identify the company behind the trading name and search both.
We name people only in their business role, as directors or owners, and only as public registers such as Companies House record them, with the date we checked. We never publish home addresses, dates of birth or anything about a person's private life, and we do not name customers or reviewers.
What we publish after a register search
- Did the search find the company, under its own name or its trading name?
- Yes Published With the register, the name searched and the date.
- No Did we write to the company at least 14 days before publishing?
- Yes Published, in exact terms The company does not appear under the names searched, as at the date of the search.
- No Nothing published The page says nothing about the company’s registration either way.
No paid placement
No company can pay to appear in our research, to be placed higher, to be described more kindly or to have a finding removed. Inclusion is decided by what a reader needs to know about the market.
Our company reviews carry no score, star rating or ranking of our own, and the order of any list means nothing. On each review, a mark in the "what we checked" grid records only whether something is published or on a register. It is not a rating of the firm. We do not rank or recommend individual estate agents.
The same Act lists another practice as unfair in all circumstances: using editorial content to promote a product that a trader has paid for, without making that clear.2 We go further than disclosure. Editorial coverage here is not for sale at all.
A firm that pays us for introductions is researched and reported on in exactly the same way as firms that pay nothing. Being covered in our research never earns a partner badge or an introduction prompt. How introductions work is on how introductions work, and how we are paid is in our privacy notice.
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Why this route
Close second: Property auction.
Selling in Scotland works differently, with a Home Report and offers over a closing date. The guides note where Scottish rules differ.
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Sources
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Numbers in the text link to these. Each was read on the date shown. How we research