Rightmove legal challenge begins today
Today sees the start of the Competition Appeal Tribunal court hearing concerning a £1.5 billion legal action on behalf of thousands of UK estate agents allegedly overcharged by Rightmove.
The legal action, led by former Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) panel member Jeremy Newman, claims that Rightmove abused its dominant position in the online property portal market by charging excessive and unfair fees to estate agents that list properties on its online portal.
In May, when the court hearing date was agreed, a Rightmove spokesperson told Estate Agent Today:
“Rightmove is confident in the value we provide to our partners and consumers, who are at the core of our business solutions and digital platform.
“As one of the most efficient parts of the UK housing market, we help people across the UK to move home by bringing buyers, sellers, renters, landlords and agents together.
“Our platform continues to provide a growing range of constantly evolving products and features which facilitate market transparency, liquidity and confidence.
“This claim is without merit, and we will defend it vigorously.”
The hearing today – and tomorrow if it goes into a second day – will determine whether the Tribunal grants a Collective Proceedings Order, certifying the claim and paving the way for it to proceed to full trial.
Meanwhile Rightmove has today announced new AI-powered tools designed to help agents spend less time on admin and focus more time on supporting their clients.
The updates help agents explain property performance more clearly to vendors and following up on leads more efficiently.
The portal has a tool that shows agents how well a property is performing on Rightmove, via AI-generated Property Performance summaries.
This turns one of Rightmove Plus’s most widely used reports into a simple explanation that agents can show vendors.
Rightmove says the feature was developed in response to agent feedback asking for an easy-to-follow summary: it is available to all agent partners regardless of package.
And building on Call Transcription, Rightmove has introduced Call Intelligence for partners on Optimiser Edge membership packages.
Using AI, Call Intelligence automatically summarises each call, identifies its purpose and highlights key opportunities for agents.
It helps agents quickly find missed opportunities, prepare for follow-up conversations by recapping the conversation and supports coaching and training.
These innovations, launched today, build on the recently created AI-enabled Online Agent Valuation tool, which increased valuation enquiries by 50% in the first half of 2026; Opportunity Manager, which uses AI to help agents identify likely sellers earlier and Lead to Keys, which helps letting agents manage the renting journey end-to-end.
A Rightmove spokesperson says:
“Our estate and letting agent partners have their hands full, so it’s our job is to help them work more efficiently and ensure the properties they market reach the audience most
likely to buy or rent from them.
“These updates give them the right information at the right time, whether they are talking to potential customers, updating customers on the marketing progress or identifying potential buyers.”
Kindly shared by EstateAgentTODAY image courtesy of Adobe
