Competition record
Castles Property
Deep profile · 1 linked library matter
Castles is a local estate agency named in the UK Three Counties case. The library records a fine over rules that restricted advertising of agents' fees.
Overview
Castles is a local property agency in the Three Counties area of southern England. Like other high-street agents, it wins instructions by persuading a seller to list, and the commission is part of that pitch. Sellers compare fees when agents are allowed to publish them.
The Three Counties case was about a restriction on that advertising. An agents' association and member firms, Castles among them, limited how fees and discounts could be advertised, including in the local paper. A seller reading the paper saw less of the price competition that a discounting agent would have used to win the listing. The library also names the association and a newspaper publisher in the same file.
The library status is fined. This profile does not state Castles' own penalty or the decision total. The conduct is a limit on fee advertising, which is a different case from the Burnham-on-Sea commission floor.
Competition footprint
Fee advertising is how a smaller or cheaper agent reaches a seller who has not walked into the office.
A collective ban on those ads protects the firms that prefer the commission not to be compared.
The recorded status is fined, without a pound figure in this profile.
Consumer & business angle
Home sellers lost an easy way to compare what local agents charged.
An agent that wanted to advertise a discount was the business the rule constrained.
What to watch
- Trade-association rules that tell member agents what they may put in an advertisement.
- Local-paper and portal listings that omit fees because of an industry understanding.
Markets
residential estate agency · local property advertising · local advertising · trade associations · small business cartels
Also known as: castles, castles estate agents