Should floorplans be regulated given their importance in valuing a property

Everything in the property world is being regulated more and more! Estate agents are heavily watched and patrolled by the Ombudsman, and by the way, if you’re using an estate agent which isn’t registered with the Ombudsman, you need to ask yourself why? Even photographs that go into details and are advertised on the websites need to be a true representation of the property. For example if the house is sitting next to a pub, or it is a flat over a shop the photograph needs to show this.

Property is valued to some extent by its size. If you think that in central London, every square foot is worth the price of a weekend away, then the accuracy of a floorplan is not unimportant. Sometimes at Douglas & Gordon we have taken instructions from other estate agents and our floorplans can often be 5% to 10% smaller than the agent before us. The owner of the house is understandably perturbed by this revelation, as this can often make their property worth much less. Now I am not saying that our floorplans are mean, but I am saying that some other floorplans may be overly generous.

So if you are buying a property and your price per square foot matters to you, rather than the outlook, or the style or the way it is decorated, then maybe it is worth having that floorplan double checked. Also our governing bodies should start to take floorplanners under their regulatory umbrella.