EA reusing photos

botchjob

The copyright is with the photographer or whoever commissioned them (depends on the agreement). There are no privacy issues now the property is not yours. You have no legal claim. Move on to something more interesting.

mysterywoman10

Although it is "misrepresentation" on behalf of the EA becauase they are not showing the property as it is now as it was taken with your stuff in and not the new owners.

Which is why I think, although I wouldn't get too worked up about it, I can understand where you are coming from on this. I would phone them up and tell them you will report them under the Property Misdescriptions Act, if they don't remove them and I bet you they will be removed by the end of the day, point out it can now be a criminal offence

They sound pretty shoddy EA's if they are doing this and it will help someone else in the future to give them a kick up the backside.

botchjob

How is it misrepresentation?? They are selling/representing the house, not the furniture in the pics. In any event, one could only make any sort of claim (even a wrong one) if one was somehow disadvantaged.

It's shoddy/lazy practice by the EA but the previous owner has no say in it at all.

mysterywoman10

If you show a photograph of the property from x number of months ago with different furniture in, then who is to say what else is different, the wallpaper, the state of decor generally, need I go on?

People are influenced in photographs certainly for viewing by the style of the property and what is in it! You only have to look at the "look at this thread" to see that. Of course it's misrepresentation of the property as it is now at this moment in time and with different owners who have lived there for quite a while it is bound to have changed in other ways as well.

mysterywoman10

Your disadvantaged if you travel a 200 mile around trip, incurring expenses and discover it's well not quite the same as it was 9 months ago! Well I would have thought so anyway and be well annoyed!!!

The OP asked for help and a legal angle I'm just proposing one, up to them whether or not they decide to use it.

jamesd

There's specific guidance from the OFT on this, noting that one breach is "Using photographs that do not depict the property accurately, or altering images to leave out problematic features". That includes cases where all the pictures do is cause someone to agree to a viewing that they wouldn't have agreed to if they saw the real condition of the property.

The question then is, do the pictures still accurately represent what is being sold. It's unlikely that the sale includes the furniture. Unless the agent is daft it's also unlikely that the are significantly incorrect about what is being sold - say the general standard of decoration. Just being two years old isn't enough to make pictures significantly incorrect.

The agent had to look at the property so they should know whether the pictures are misrepresenting the condition of what is being sold.

Nine months or two years ago isn't misleading. Unless the condition of what is being sold has changed significantly in that time.

The agency is still being foolish, though.

moneyistooshorttomention

mysterywoman10 wrote: »

Although it is "misrepresentation" on behalf of the EA becauase they are not showing the property as it is now as it was taken with your stuff in and not the new owners.

Which is why I think, although I wouldn't get too worked up about it, I can understand where you are coming from on this. I would phone them up and tell them you will report them under the Property Misdescriptions Act, if they don't remove them and I bet you they will be removed by the end of the day, point out it can now be a criminal offence

They sound pretty shoddy EA's if they are doing this and it will help someone else in the future to give them a kick up the backside.

That sounds like the best thought on this to date:T

After all, your furniture etc may have been thoroughly decent/good condition/good taste and made the place look pretty good. For all you know, the present owners of this house may have a right load of old tat for furniture/have been letting any children they have do graffiti on the walls/going for bodge job level DIY and thoroughly mucked up the look of the interior of the place and potential viewers could be going round to view it thinking it looks perfectly decent and get inside and realise it's been turned into a right heap.

I can certainly sympathise with the point that a viewer might have travelled a long distance to look at the house on the basis of these photos and they would have been put to all that hassle and expense for nothing if the subsequent owner has wrecked the place since they bought it. Even if they have looked after the place, they might well have done things like changing the kitchen or bathroom/putting walls up/knocking walls down and this could all result in the interior of the house being substantially different to what it was at the time OP owned it.

googler

mysterywoman10 wrote: »

Although it is "misrepresentation" on behalf of the EA becauase they are not showing the property as it is now as it was taken with your stuff in and not the new owners.

Which is why I think, although I wouldn't get too worked up about it, I can understand where you are coming from on this. I would phone them up and tell them you will report them under the Property Misdescriptions Act, if they don't remove them and I bet you they will be removed by the end of the day, point out it can now be a criminal offence

It's not misrepresentation because they're selling the house, not the furnishings within (regardless of whether said furnishings happen to be in the photos or not.

It's also not an offence under PMA. Furnishings and contents are not one of the 'prescribed matters' within the act. Have you ever read it? The actual legislation?

googler

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I can certainly sympathise with the point that a viewer might have travelled a long distance to look at the house on the basis of these photos and they would have been put to all that hassle and expense for nothing if the subsequent owner has wrecked the place since they bought it. Even if they have looked after the place, they might well have done things like changing the kitchen or bathroom/putting walls up/knocking walls down and this could all result in the interior of the house being substantially different to what it was at the time OP owned it.

Now you're just speculating; there's no indication from the OP that the house has changed, merely that the photos with different furnishings have been re-used.

Yes, if the house has been altered, the EA is in the wrong to show photos which materially misrepresent anything covered under the prescribed matters of the PMA, or which contradict the OFT guidelines (external views which omit the substation or fish-processing factory next door are the scale of things that they're talking about, though...), but merely having photos of different furniture isn't a misrepresentation of the property... and

googler wrote: »

Why is this any more an invasion of privacy than having the photos published when you were actually in residence?

jamesd wrote: »

The original consent to publish threw away any potential privacy argument - you can't consent to have something private published then complain about breached privacy when it's republished. You already accepted that it was no longer to be private when you agreed to the initial publication.

Prescribed matters under PMA -

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1992/2834/schedule/made

moneyistooshorttomention

googler wrote: »

Now you're just speculating; there's no indication from the OP that the house has changed, merely that the photos with different furnishings have been re-used.

Yes, if the house has been altered, the EA is in the wrong to show photos which materially misrepresent anything covered under the prescribed matters of the PMA, or which contradict the OFT guidelines (external views which omit the substation or fish-processing factory next door are the scale of things that they're talking about, though...), but merely having photos of different furniture isn't a misrepresentation of the property... and

I am more than a little puzzled:cool: by the repeat the message that different furniture isnt a misrepresentation.

We are NOT just talking different furniture - we are talking different interior and that could mean one heck of a lot more than just different furniture. I have given some examples - graffiti, bodged DIY, walls up or down. Not sure how many more examples of things possibly being very different in the interior of a house I have to give to make that clear - but I'm sure that you (as an estate agent yourself) can think of many more....:cool: