Over 250 agencies have so far expressed interest in and support for legal action against Rightmove.
A £1.5 billion legal action has been filed in the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) alleging Rightmove abused its dominant position in the UK online property portal market by charging thousands of agents and developers “excessive and unfair subscription fees.”
Rightmove says it will vigorously defend the claim which it describes as being “without merit.”
A statement from the portal says: “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.”
However, the man bringing the action – Jeremy Newman, a former panel member of the Competition and Markets Authority – has given details of some of the agency support he has received since it was first announced in November 2025.
He describe this as ”an unusually high level of expressions of interest for such a case at this stage” and states that some agents, on an anonymous basis, have agreed to share their own experiences.
One 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 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”.
And 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”.
