£1.5 BILLION LEGAL ACTION FILED AGAINST RIGHTMOVE IN UK’S COMPETITION COURT FOR OVERCHARGING THOUSANDS OF ESTATE AGENTS
LONDON — A £1.5 billion legal action has today been filed against property company Rightmove in the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT).
The claim alleges that Rightmove abused its dominant position in the UK online property portal market by charging thousands of estate agents and new home developers excessive and unfair subscription fees. The action is brought by Jeremy Newman, a former panel member of the Competition and Markets Authority.
Rightmove received a pre-action letter informing them of the imminent legal action in November 2025. Today the claim has been filed at the CAT, detailing the evidence and relief sought for thousands of UK estate agents.
Jeremy Newman, leading the case against Rightmove, said:
“There has been an extremely encouraging response from estate agents since we announced this legal action. The stories shared by businesses, both small and large, have confirmed long-held concerns in the market about Rightmove’s conduct.
Filing this claim today advances the route to meaningful compensation for those businesses who have had very little choice but to absorb excessive fee increases for many years.”
Estate agents speak out against Rightmove
Over 250 estate agencies from across the UK so far have expressed interest in and support for the claim against Rightmove since it was first announced in November 2025. This is an unusually high level of expressions of interest for such a case at this stage. Some estate agents, on an anonymous basis, have agreed to share their own experiences.
One estate agent based in the East Midlands described how Rightmove “bully clients into making payments, with the threat of making houses invisible”, while another running a “small family agency” based in London said: “I have just had to close my business, and it was down in no small part to their excessive fees”.
An East Lancashire-based estate agent said: “I despise the fact they dictate pricing and at a time where the housing market is struggling, you’d think they’d be more supportive of agents and not cripple them even more”. One former business owner from Cambridgeshire said their previous estate agency “suffered greatly in a quieter market due to excessive Rightmove fees, which forced me to close the business”.
The claim is fully funded by Innsworth Capital, with legal support from Scott+Scott UK LLP and independent economic analysis by Kairos Economics.
James Hain-Cole, Partner at Scott+Scott said:
“For years, thousands of businesses have been captive customers of Rightmove, which faces no effective competition. It’s therefore been allowed to financially squeeze its subscribers by consistently and materially raising prices without proper justification or explanation. We’re pleased to have now filed this important legal action and to be supporting Jeremy in seeking redress for thousands of British businesses.”
Estate agencies punished year-after-year by Rightmove’s dominance
According to Rightmove’s own disclosures, over 80% of all consumer time spent on UK property portals is spent on its platform. In its recently published results, the company reported profit margins of around 70% for the second consecutive year, the highest in the FTSE 100. The claim argues that these margins reflect pricing made possible by market dominance rather than competition on the merits.
Research published in December 2025 found that Rightmove’s annual fee rises have outpaced the growth in estate agencies’ commission earnings for the third consecutive year. In 2024, for example, house prices increased by 1.3% versus 2023, boosting the average commission earned per property sold by £49. However, Rightmove’s average monthly fee increased by £93 per month, an increase of 6.5%.
Read the latest BBC coverage on the claim against Rightmove here.