‘Below market value’ is a price claim, and since 6 April 2025 price claims have been regulated by the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act. So the only question that matters is: below whose market value, and evidenced how? Every property here carries sold comparables and a stated reason for the discount. If we cannot give you both, it does not go on this page.
Sold comparables on the street for the last twelve months, not a discount from an asking price somebody chose. A reduction from a price nobody paid is not a discount.
Probate, a repossession, a short lease, a tenant in situ, condition, a title defect. If nobody can name why it is cheap, it is not cheap — it is optimistically valued.
Our fee is paid by the seller. Nobody here will charge you three or four thousand pounds to be introduced to a property, which is worth knowing before you pay someone else one.
Redress scheme, HMRC anti-money laundering supervision, client money protection and professional indemnity cover. Ask any sourcer for theirs and see what happens.
Budget, region, strategy and how you plan to get out — refinance, flip or hold. The exit decides which discounts are actually worth anything to you.
Comparables, the reason for the price, the condition position and any title issue. Where a property needs work, an honest figure for it rather than a hopeful one.
If the numbers do not survive the refurbishment estimate, the finance cost or a likely down-valuation, you will hear that from us before you spend money on a survey.
Since 6 April 2025 the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 has governed this. A misleading price claim is an unfair commercial practice, and omitting material information from an invitation to purchase is treated as unfair whether or not it changed your decision. The CMA can act without going to court and fine up to 10 per cent of global turnover.
In practice that means the reference point has to be genuine. A discount measured against an asking price is measured against a number the seller chose, and asking prices are not evidence of value. Ask for sold prices on the same street in the last twelve months, and pounds per square foot. Any competent agent can produce both; an unwillingness to is itself the answer.
Property does sell below its open market value, routinely, and always for a nameable reason:
If nobody can tell you which of these applies, the discount is against a figure somebody invented. That is not a bargain, it is a valuation opinion dressed as one.
Some of what circulates in this market is not a grey area. Any arrangement where the price stated to a lender differs from the price actually paid — an inflated purchase price with a hidden discount, cashback or gifted deposit that the lender is not told about — is mortgage fraud, and both parties to it commit an offence. The test is simple: if a deal only works because the lender does not know something, the deal does not work.
A property sourcer or deal packager is carrying on estate agency work, and the law treats them accordingly. Before you pay anybody a finder’s fee, they should be able to give you all of the following:
And section 21 of the Estate Agents Act requires disclosure of any personal interest. In this corner of the market it is common for the person selling you the deal to be buying it themselves, or to be connected to the seller. Ask directly, ask for the redress scheme number, and check it.
It should mean below the price the property would achieve on the open market with normal marketing and a normal timescale, evidenced by comparable sold prices. It very often means below an asking price that was set high in the first place, which is not the same thing and is worth nothing to you. Ask what the claim is measured against before you ask anything else.
Speed, certainty, or a problem with the property. Executors wanting a clean estate, receivers working to a timetable, portfolio sellers pricing for one transaction, short leases, cladding, condition, or a sitting tenant on a low rent. All of these are real and all of them are nameable. A discount nobody can explain usually is not one.
The phrase covers several different things, some lawful and some criminal. Genuine bridging, joint ventures and vendor finance can all be legitimate when disclosed properly. What is not lawful is inflating the recorded purchase price and taking an undisclosed discount or cashback so a lender advances more than it otherwise would. That is mortgage fraud and both parties commit an offence. If a structure requires the lender not to know something, walk away.
No. Our fee comes from the seller. We do not charge a finder\u2019s fee, a packaging fee or a percentage of your uplift. If somebody is charging you several thousand pounds for an introduction, ask what they are also being paid by the other side, and whether they have declared a personal interest.
Five things: their redress scheme and membership number, evidence of HMRC anti-money laundering supervision, whether they hold client money and under what protection, their professional indemnity cover, and whether they have any personal interest in the property. All five are legal requirements or legal duties, not courtesies. A sourcer who cannot answer all five is trading unlawfully, and that is the clearest signal you will get about how the rest of the deal will be handled.
