A prominent agent says the latest attempt to stop Rightmove levying ever-higher fees on the industry has “a smidgeon short of zero” chance of succeeding.

Trevor Abrahmsohn, chief executive of high end London agency Glentree Estates, says in his latest blog that the call for an investigation into Rightmove’s charges is “laudable” but doomed for failure.

Last week we reported that Shaun Adams – owner of Brighton agency Cooper Adams – started a petition saying: “We, the undersigned independent estate agents, are calling for an urgent investigation into Rightmove’s unfair and unsustainable pricing model, which is crippling small businesses and stifling competition. Rightmove dominates the UK property portal market, with over 86% of all online property searches taking place on their platform. Sellers expect their homes to be listed on Rightmove, and buyers naturally turn to it first—giving estate agents no real choice but to remain on the platform, no matter the cost.”

Adams claimed the Competitions and Markets Authority could be interested in probing Rightmove because of what he calls “potential anti-competitive practices” such as “Unfair Pricing: Rightmove is increasing fees by 18% while offering larger agencies lower, negotiated rates. This disproportionately impacts small independent agents who have less bargaining power” and “Lock-in Tactics: Rightmove’s strategy of increasing rates for agents who leave and later return discourages competition and restricts market movement” and “Lack of Value Justification: They have a 71.5% profit margin and are not reinvesting significantly to provide 18% more value to agents or the public.”

However, Abrahmsohn says the industry’s best chance of stopping Rightmove had been OnTheMarket, which he himself helped launch at a secret meeting 15 years ago.

The Glentree boss says that with proper funding OTM could have been a genuine rival, keeping both Rightmove and Zoopla levying more competitive fees. He was a vehement opponent of OTM’s move away from agent ownership and its acquisition by US firm Costar in late 2023.

Ironically, the last time the Competition and Markets Authority looked into a portal it was not Rightmove or Zoopla, but OnTheMarket – when it was agent-owned. 

Almost a decade ago the CMA warned estate and lettings agencies over alleged agreements between them as to rivals which property portals they should list on. This was at the time of OnTheMarket’s controversial leadership by Ian Springett, who went on to be sacked by OTM after a failure to dislodge Zoopla as the number two portal.

Since then no one has come close to shifting Rightmove from its number one portal status in the UK.

Meanwhile the Shaun Adams petition, despite being a week old and having received extensive publicity in the industry press, has fewer than 1,300 signatures as of early today.