Should an agency put its fees on its website?

There is no rule that a sales agent must put its fee on its website. What the law does require is that the vendor gets it in writing before signing. Section 18 of the Estate Agents Act 1979 says that before anyone enters a contract with an estate agent, the agent must give them the circumstances in which they will have to pay, the amount of the fee or, if it is not yet known, how it will be calculated, and any other payments that may fall due. If the agent does not, the contract cannot be enforced without a court’s permission.

Lettings is the exception. Section 83 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires a letting agent to publish its list of fees at every office where it meets clients and, if it has a website, on the website, with each fee described clearly enough to see what it covers and shown including tax. In England the duty extends to third party sites that advertise its properties or services, which includes the portals. If your agency does both, the lettings fees page is not optional, and our checklist of what an agency website should include covers the rest of what lettings pages have to show.

So for the sales side, the question is not whether you are allowed to stay quiet. It is whether staying quiet costs you valuations.

If your agency is a member of The Property Ombudsman, its Code of Practice for Residential Estate Agents (the current version is dated March 2026) has three clauses that decide how a fee can appear on a website:

• Include VAT, and say so. Clause 3c: when advertising for new business, “fees must be shown inclusive of VAT alongside a statement confirming that VAT is included.” A fee of 1% plus VAT goes on the site as 1.2% including VAT.
• Decide it yourself. Clause 3e says decisions about how you advertise your fees, charges and offers must be taken independently of your competitors. Agreeing with the agency down the road what to publish is not allowed.
• Quote percentages with an example. Clause 5k applies to the terms of business rather than the website: a percentage fee must be quoted including VAT, with an example amount based on the asking price, and the vendor told the fee moves up or down with the sale price. It is a sensible model for a website too.

The wider consumer law points the same way. The CMA’s guidance on price transparency under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, published on 18 November 2025, says a price shown to consumers should include every mandatory charge: VAT, and “administration fees, however described”. An agency that publishes a percentage and then adds a compulsory marketing or admin charge at the valuation is doing exactly what the guidance warns against. Where a total genuinely cannot be worked out in advance, the guidance allows a full price list or a “from” price, provided it is realistic and attainable. A “from 0.75%” that no real vendor is ever offered fails that test.

None of this is legal advice for your agency, but the pattern is clear: if a figure goes on the site, it is the whole figure, VAT included, and it is one you would actually quote.

Vendors are being told to ask. Rightmove’s guide for sellers tells them to make sure they “fully understand what the agent’s fee covers, when it’s payable and whether it might apply on a ‘no sale, no fee’ basis”, and to check tie in periods, notice periods, exclusivity and charges for extra marketing. The same guide tells them to judge an agent by first impressions of its website. A vendor who has read that and then finds nothing about fees on your site has an unanswered question at the exact moment you want them to book.

A published figure also does some qualifying for you. A vendor who books after seeing your fee knows roughly what it will be, so the valuation is spent on the house and the plan rather than on haggling. Agencies that charge above the local norm and win anyway often have the most to gain: the fee on the page is a statement of confidence, and the reasons for it can sit right next to it.

For context, Rightmove’s own fees guide puts the average at around 1.3% including VAT in 2025, with sole agency usually between 1% and 1.8% and multi agency between 2.5% and 3.6%. It puts fixed fees typically between £500 and £1,500. In our view that is where online agents compete, and when price is the pitch, the price goes on the page.

The honest argument against is that the fee often is not known until you have seen the house. A flat that will sell in a fortnight and a country house that needs six months of marketing, extra photography and a premium portal listing are different jobs, and a single number on a website has to cover both. Many agencies also vary the fee with the method of sale, a sliding scale above a target price, or a tie in period.

There is a positioning worry too. A figure on the page invites comparison on price alone, before you have had the chance to show what the fee buys. Rightmove’s guide makes the counterpoint itself: “the lowest fee isn’t necessarily the best value”, because a higher fee can be more than covered by a better sale price. That argument is far easier to make across a kitchen table than in a line of text.

Both positions are reasonable. What is not reasonable is a site that says nothing at all, because the vendor has been told fees are the first thing to understand.

The middle path suits most traditional agencies, and it answers everything the vendor has been told to check except the figure itself:

1. The structure. Percentage or fixed, and whether it slides with the sale price.
2. The basis. Sole agency or sole selling rights, explained in plain English. The Ombudsman’s code requires the legal definitions in the terms of business; a short version on the website saves the explanation later.
3. When it is due. Whether it is no sale, no fee, and the point it falls due, as your terms actually say. The Ombudsman’s code makes exchange of contracts the default unless something else was agreed.
4. What it includes. Photography, floorplans, the portals you list on, accompanied viewings, sales progression.
5. What costs extra. Any optional upgrade, priced, so nothing appears for the first time in the contract.
6. The tie in and notice period. The thing vendors most fear being trapped by.
7. A worked example, if you are willing: on a £350,000 sale, a 1.2% fee including VAT is £4,200. It shows how the sum works without committing you to that rate.

Put it on its own page, link it from the valuation booking, and keep the booking one tap away from it. In our guide to getting more valuation requests this is one of the questions a vendor’s visit has to answer before they book.

We build estate agency websites around the vendor’s decision to book a valuation, so every site we make has a place for fees, whichever way the agency chooses. That can be a published figure with the VAT statement beside it, a “how our fee works” page, or lettings fees laid out the way section 83 requires. The choice of figure is yours; the page that answers the question is part of the build. What a website like that costs is set out on our pricing page.

• legislation.gov.uk: Estate Agents Act 1979, section 18
• legislation.gov.uk: Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 83
• The Property Ombudsman: Code of Practice for Residential Estate Agents (TPOE27-9, March 2026)
• CMA: Unfair commercial practices, price transparency (CMA209), 18 November 2025
• Rightmove: How to choose the right estate agent
• Rightmove: How much are estate agent fees and how do they work?

More guides for agency owners are on the guides page.