Is this misleading or am I being pedantic

mills705

Having a look on Rightmove at properties for sale near me. I live in a suburb and within the suburb many years ago there was a village and the houses there are in the main older and built of stone. There are on the way into the village road signs saying the villages name. 

A new build estate was built close to said village but not in it. All of the adverts for the houses being sold now say in the village. 
Interestingly phase 2 has just started being built and the adverts now say West of said village. 

Are these adverts misleading potential purchasers? 

tacpot12

As the village has been absorbed into the suburb, there is no official way to know where the village begins and ends. I assume there is no Parish Council that could be consulted to determine the extent of the village. 

So the developers are stretching a point, but clearly they are selling new properties that were never part of the original village. The village has been absorbed into the suburb, so I don't think they are misleading potential purchases in any meaningful way.  

Stubod

.probably....but that's just the nature of marketing...and yes, you are being pedantic....

FreeBear

Boundaries change - Where I live, it used to be a village (well, a handful of houses) that got subsumed in to the city as it grew. Same story for larger cities such as London, Birmingham, Leeds, etc.

user1977

tacpot12 said:

So the developers are stretching a point, but clearly they are selling new properties that were never part of the original village.

And surely a vast proportion of newbuild developments are extending the boundaries of an existing settlement? Not clear from the OP what they're expecting the address to be...

theartfullodger

I've never seen an advert for property that wasn't in some way misleading..  Likewise many "investment" schemes, crypto-currency, car adverts etc etc...

Agents are trained to write that way (they probably think it's being positive).  

Part of capitalism (see Proudhon, "property is theft").

Best wishes to all 

mills705

I get boundaries change but the signs have not moved at all so I don't agree they have moved. There is a township surrounding the village already with the same name, the new build estate should form part of this. 

eddddy

FWIW, the appropriate bodies to complain to would be...

• If you think the Estate Agents online listings are misleading, you can complain to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

• The ASA regulate property sales advertising: https://www.asa.org.uk/topic/Property_sales_and_lettings.html

And/or 

• if, for example, somebody was misled about the location of the property by the listing and travelled 100 miles to view the property

• if the estate agent is a member of The Property Ombudsman Scheme, that person could complain to the Ombudsman, and the Ombudsman might order the estate agent to pay compensation to that person

RHemmings

eddddy said:

FWIW, the appropriate bodies to complain to would be...

• If you think the Estate Agents online listings are misleading, you can complain to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

• The ASA regulate property sales advertising: https://www.asa.org.uk/topic/Property_sales_and_lettings.html

And/or 

• if, for example, somebody was misled about the location of the property by the listing and travelled 100 miles to view the property

• if the estate agent is a member of The Property Ombudsman Scheme, that person could complain to the Ombudsman, and the Ombudsman might order the estate agent to pay compensation to that person

I'd like to see the second case in action. Pressure of work prevents me from looking up cases today. 

I wonder what would happen if someone were to email the agent (e.g. the OP) and ask them to confirm that the properties are located in the village. E.g. saying that they remember the village, but can't place that housing estate within it. 

I used to get good responses from the ASA when I made complaints, and there were even some judgements based on the complaints of myself (and, usually, others). However, recently I've not even had acknowledgements of my complaints. I don't know if that's because they are now less reactive in general, or if I've been unlucky.

Bonniepurple

The village boundary might not have changed, but it might have been built up to.  Alternatively, as others have said, boundaries do change.  My MiL lived for a time in a tiny village.  Years later we moved there and it had been absorbed into the city.  By the time we left, there’d been more building and the city boundary had been adjusted again.  It does still have quite a village-y feel but not as much as the village I now live in, which in turn isn’t as much as a tiny adjacent village where the school takes 12 children per year.

BarelySentientAI

Is this Clifton?