A leaflet for the estate agent said: "If your agent isn't marketing your house properly they won't get you the best price.
“Haart Estate Agents of Dereham achieved an average of 100% of our asking prices in the last three months."
On the Rightmove website the estate agent claimed that 99.80% of asking prices had been achieved on properties sold in the last three months.
The ASA said that the percentage quoted was an average for all houses sold which wasn’t made clear. Plus, in the majority of cases, the market price had been expressed as a range between two figures and SpicerHaart had used the lower of the two figures when calculating the average percentage.
The ASA considered that the text in the leaflet contributed to the impression that the houses were being sold at the best market price which wasn’t necessarily the case.
The advert will not be allowed to appear in its current form, while SpicerHaart has been warned to substantiate claims about its achieved prices in future.
The adjudication said: “Because we considered that the evidence was not adequate to support the impression that single asking prices had been achieved for the percentage of sales stated, we concluded the ad was misleading.”
