Four normal lines that are not allowed now.
"No DSS." "Would suit professionals." "Offers invited, highest offer secures." "Deposit six weeks." Every one of those was ordinary in a lettings advert recently. None of them can stay.
Why a nicer advert can be a worse one.
Ask a general writing tool to improve a property advert and it will do exactly what you asked: better rhythm, warmer adjectives, a stronger opening. It will leave "no DSS" exactly where it found it, because you asked for better copy and that line is not a copy problem. You will end up with a more persuasive version of an advert you should not be running.
The rules moved. From 1 May 2026 blanket refusals to let to people receiving benefits or to families with children are prohibited in England, and the indirect forms are caught too — "professionals only" and "must be in permanent employment" are the same refusal in a politer coat. Rental bidding is banned, so the advertised rent is a ceiling rather than an opening position. Rent in advance is capped at one month, and the deposit cap has been five weeks' rent for lets below the higher-rent threshold for some time. Fixed-term assured tenancies are not something a landlord can grant any more, so "12 month AST minimum" describes a tenancy that no longer exists.
Alongside that sits the duty on material information, which did not go away when the guidance behind it was withdrawn — it got stronger. Leaving a required fact out of a sale or letting advert is unfair on its own terms now, whether or not it can be shown to have changed anyone's mind. The council tax band and the energy rating are the two most commonly missing, and both are the sort of thing a rewrite will happily invent if it is not stopped.
So it will not state an energy rating, a council tax band, a tenure, a lease length, a service charge or a ground rent you did not supply. Each one comes back naming the document or the free check that answers it.
A real advert, before and after.
From the Rightmove and Zoopla rubric behind the job.
Stunning 2 bed apartment, Salford Quays — £1,450 pcm
Beautiful modern apartment in a sought after development, close to all local amenities and transport links. Two good sized double bedrooms, spacious open plan living area, modern fitted kitchen with integrated appliances. Allocated parking. Would suit professionals. No DSS. Available now. Offers invited — highest offer secures. Deposit 6 weeks rent, 2 months rent in advance required.
Viewing highly recommended, this one won't be around for long!
Two-bed sixth-floor apartment with allocated parking, Salford Quays — £1,450 pcm
A two-bedroom apartment on the sixth floor of [MUST SUPPLY: building name] with one allocated parking space in the undercroft. The rent is £1,450 per calendar month and that is the maximum we will accept — offers above the advertised rent will not be considered.
Living area 6.1m × 4.2m, open plan to the kitchen. Bedroom one 3.9m × 3.2m, fits a king bed with wardrobes. Bedroom two 3.1m × 2.6m, currently used as a study; it takes a double with limited floor space around it. Bathroom is a bath with over-bath shower; there is no second WC.
Energy rating [MUST SUPPLY: band — required in the advert once a certificate exists]. Council tax band [MUST SUPPLY: band — free to check at gov.uk/council-tax-bands].
Costs: deposit five weeks' rent (£1,673); holding deposit one week's rent (£334.62), refundable subject to the statutory conditions; one month's rent in advance. No other fees are payable.
Applications are welcome from all households, including those receiving benefits and those with children.
Note that the arithmetic is done. Five weeks on £1,450 a month is £1,673, and showing the figure is what makes the correction usable — a landlord who is told "the cap is five weeks" still has to work it out, and the one who works it out wrong has not been helped.
"Two good sized double bedrooms" became two measurements and one honest constraint. The second bedroom takes a double with not much room around it, and saying so costs one viewing and saves five, because the version that does not say it fails at the viewing anyway — the tape measure is in the room.
And "won't be around for long" is gone. Falsely suggesting limited availability to hurry a decision is banned outright, and it is the single most common phrase in the category.
How it runs.
- Paste the advert. The full text as it appears on the portal, including the costs paragraph and any "would suit" line. Say whether this is a sale or a letting, and which nation — the position is not the same across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and it will ask rather than assume.
- Top up once. This job uses never more than 40p and spends only what the report costs. A change is another go at the job and costs pence too, which matters here: the first pass usually surfaces two or three facts you have to go and look up before the advert is finished.
- You get a compliance-first report. The score is capped hard by anything unlawful or missing, so a beautifully written advert with "no DSS" in it will not score well. Then the ranked fixes, a rewritten advert, and the list of documents and free checks that close each gap.
Nothing is spent on a generation that fails.
Who this is for.
Worth it if
- You are a private landlord writing your own advert without an agent.
- Your advert has been running unchanged since before the rules moved.
- You have copied wording from another listing on the same portal.
- You are selling and cannot work out which facts have to be in the advert rather than in the pack.
- You want to know what a room measurement claim is committing you to.
Not for you if
- You want legal advice. This is a drafting and checking job, not advice, and it will tell you to confirm the current position rather than pretending to be certain.
- You want the energy rating or the council tax band supplied. It will name the free check and refuse to guess.
- You want to keep a "professionals only" preference. It will take it out and say why.
- Your issue is a valuation. It reads an advert; it does not price a property.
What sellers and agents ask about the fields nobody fills in.
Where do I find my council tax band?
On gov.uk and on the council's own valuation listing, searchable by address, and it is worth the ninety seconds rather than reasoning backwards from the asking price. Bands in England and Scotland derive from 1991 values and in Wales from 2003, so a house that has trebled since can sit lower than anybody guesses. It will not infer a band from anything at all: the field comes back as a required gap naming where to get it, because a wrong band in an advert is a wrong material fact.
Do I legally have to put the tenure in the advert?
Tenure is a required field on Zoopla, and beyond that it is material information. Under section 230 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, in force since 6 April 2025, omitting information the average consumer needs from an invitation to purchase is unfair regardless of whether it can be shown to have changed anybody's decision. That last clause is the part people miss. It will not guess tenure from the property type — a flat is not automatically leasehold and a house is not automatically freehold.
What happened to the National Trading Standards material information guidance?
It was withdrawn in May 2025, because the law it had been written against was repealed. The fields did not go away with it: the taxonomy survives as industry practice and as the shape of the portal forms, while the underlying duty moved to the DMCC Act. So the list of things to state is much as it was, and the citation people put beside it is now the wrong one. The report names what is missing and why it matters, and it will not tell you whether you are compliant.
Do I have to include the EPC rating?
Where a valid certificate exists it has to appear in the advertisement, under the Energy Performance of Buildings (England and Wales) Regulations 2012, and certificates last ten years — so a property marketed twice in a decade usually has one already. A missing EPC is a listed failure. It will not state a rating you have not given, and it will not tell you whether an exemption applies to your property, because that is a question for the assessor or the enforcing authority.
Can I put offers over on a rental?
Not from 1 May 2026 in England. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 requires the proposed rent to be stated in the advertisement and prohibits inviting, encouraging or accepting more than it. Offers over, open to offers and best and final on a letting all describe a process being closed off. It flags the wording and removes it from the rewrite. For the penalties, read the Act rather than the figures circulating in trade coverage, several of which are widely repeated and thinly sourced.
The advert says no DSS and professionals only. That is only my preference.
From 1 May 2026 blanket bans on benefit recipients and on families with children are prohibited in England, and the prohibition reaches the indirect wording too: professionals only, in permanent employment, no children. It will not write any of them, it removes them from the rewrite, and it raises the removal as the top issue rather than quietly improving the advert, because you need to know it was there. A preference and an advertisement are different things, and it is the advertisement the rule governs.
There is damp in the back bedroom. Can it phrase that more gently?
It will not soften it, and the refusal is deliberate. Damp in the back bedroom does not become the property would benefit from some updating, because softening a disclosed negative is the exact point at which a listing turns into a misrepresentation. What it will do is place it where it does least damage: stated plainly and early rather than discovered at the second viewing, and set beside whatever has actually been done about it, if anything has.
The photographs are wide-angle. Everybody does that.
Wide-angle distortion, replaced skies and unlabelled virtual staging are all on the failure list, and the last is the one that bites — furniture that is not there has to be labelled as staging. The test is simple and unforgiving: does the person standing in the room recognise it from the picture. If not, the viewing is where you find out, and the viewing cost somebody an afternoon. It comments on what the copy claims alongside the images rather than on images it has not been shown.
Get the advert checked.
Paste the whole thing, costs paragraph included. The report opens with anything that is not allowed, then with anything that is missing, then with how it reads.
Top up once. No subscription. About 28p — never more than 40p.