UK estate agents can hand AI the work that sits between an enquiry and a viewing: first replies, follow-up drafts, listing copy from a property link, summaries of a chat history and the weekly admin around them. The UK rules decide how far that goes. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 governs what a listing may say, the Estate Agents Act 1979 and the redress scheme duty frame how you deal with clients, HMRC supervises your anti-money laundering checks, and the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) covers the personal data an AI tool touches. For the general picture, read AI for estate agents: what works today, what doesn't, a 1-week plan.
The sources below were read on 21 October 2026. This is a practical guide, not legal advice, and the law and the guidance move, so check the linked pages before you rely on a detail.
How enquiries reach a UK agent
A UK agent's enquiries arrive from four places: the portals, the agent's own website and valuation forms, social media and ads, and the phone or WhatsApp. Each portal describes its own side of this on its own site.
- Rightmove. Its press centre shows that on 13 October 2026 Rightmove added an AI-powered Comparison Assistant to search results, the third capability of its "Ask Rightmove" conversational search. A Rightmove release on enhanced tenant leads says letting agents can receive and manage those leads inside their own CRM, with Reapit among the launch systems, instead of working only in Rightmove's own tool. The release carries no date, so check the current position.
- Zoopla. Its press releases list valuation leads to agents, a 24 April 2026 enterprise agreement with OpenAI described as an investment in AI to drive higher lead quality, and a boilerplate that places Zoopla in the Houseful group alongside Alto, Hometrack, Jupix and Yourkeys.
- OnTheMarket. Its site offers a find-an-agent directory and a separate "OnTheMarket Expert" area for property professionals, and its footer carries a 2026 CoStar Group copyright notice.
- Your own channels. The website form, the valuation request, the Instagram message and the WhatsApp question have no portal behind them, so nothing records them unless you do.
The practical point is the same whichever portal sends the lead. Every source ends up in a different inbox, and AI follow-up only works once those enquiries land in one pipeline with the source recorded. The step-by-step process, including how to treat WhatsApp, is in AI lead follow-up on WhatsApp: a fast, personal reply to every enquiry.
The rules that touch AI work in a UK agency
Listings: the DMCC Act and material information
Since 6 April 2025 the unfair commercial practices rules in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 have applied. Section 226 covers misleading actions and section 227 covers misleading omissions, and both took effect on that date. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) explains how it reads them in its CMA207 guidance, updated on 18 November 2025. It treats the sale or lease of land as a product, lists "whether to view a property" as a transactional decision, and gives an example of a house advertised with three bedrooms when it has two bedrooms and a box room too small for a bed. It also gives the example of an estate agent who tells a consumer they have recently sold several houses in the same area, to push the buyer towards an inflated price.
For AI this means one thing. A model will write a confident, fluent description, and a confident false line is a misleading action. Counting a study as a bedroom, inventing a parking space or implying a sold history you do not have are the errors to catch. The agent who publishes the text owns it. The checklist for listing copy is in AI property listing from a link: a description you can trust, and the rules for AI images and staging, including Rightmove's labelling rule, are in AI virtual staging and property video: the rules for estate agents.
EPC rating in the advert
Regulation 11 of the Energy Performance of Buildings (England and Wales) Regulations 2012 requires the energy performance rating from the property's certificate to appear in any advertisement of a sale or rental in commercial media, on the A to G scale for dwellings. See regulation 11. An AI-written advert or social post must carry the rating from the certificate unchanged, and it must never round it up or describe it loosely. If the property is in Scotland or Northern Ireland, check the separate regime that applies there, which this page does not cover. Propertymark reports that the reform of domestic EPCs has been held back until 2027, so the rating you quote today still comes from the current certificate.
Estate Agents Act 1979 and redress
Section 23A of the Estate Agents Act 1979 lets the Secretary of State require people doing residential estate agency work to belong to an approved redress scheme. Article 2 of the Estate Agents (Redress Scheme) Order 2008 imposes that duty on every person who engages in relevant estate agency work. In practice the schemes are The Property Ombudsman (TPO) and The Property Redress Scheme (PRS). The TPO site describes complaints about agents and says its awards can include compensation, and PRS describes itself as approved under the 2015 alternative dispute resolution regulations. Neither page mentions AI. What follows is a judgement, not a rule they state: an AI-drafted message is your message, so a complaint about wrong information in it is a complaint about you, handled the same way as any other.
Anti-money laundering: HMRC supervises estate agents
HMRC supervises estate agency businesses under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017. Its estate agent guidance (AMLG2200), published on 8 July 2026 and updated on 13 October 2026, says a business must not trade as an estate agency business until it has applied to register with HMRC, and that businesses with no premises or that operate entirely online are still in scope. It treats both the buyer and the seller as customers for customer due diligence, treats the business relationship with a seller as starting when the agreement is made, before the property is marketed, and with a buyer when the seller formally accepts an offer, and says due diligence must be complete before a binding contract and ideally starts earlier. If due diligence cannot be completed, the business must not proceed. Separately, the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/621), made on 9 June 2026, amended the 2017 Regulations, with most provisions in force from 30 June 2026, so check your procedures against the current text.
The guidance we read does not mention AI tools. Our reading for AI work is simple: a model can draft the request for ID documents, chase them and log what arrived, but the checks and any suspicious activity report remain yours.
Data protection: UK GDPR and the ICO
Personal data in a chat history, a lead form or a CRM falls under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, supervised by the ICO. The ICO's guidance on AI and data protection was last updated on 15 March 2023, and the page now carries a notice that it is under review because of the Data (Use and Access) Act. It covers accountability, transparency, lawfulness, accuracy, fairness, security and data minimisation, including what to consider in a data protection impact assessment. For an agency, the practical questions are what client data goes into the tool, whether the vendor trains models on it, and what you tell clients. A ten-point check is in AI, GDPR and the EU AI Act: a 10-point check for estate agents.
The EU AI Act is an EU regulation, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, and it is not part of UK law. A UK agency that markets to buyers in the EU should check separately whether it applies to that activity.
The UK AI context in short
The UK has taken a regulator-led approach. The government's white paper of 29 March 2023 proposed no new AI regulator and no new AI statute at the outset. Existing regulators apply five principles within their own remits, among them transparency and explainability, fairness, accountability and governance, and contestability and redress. The AI Opportunities Action Plan of 13 January 2025 calls the pro-innovation approach a source of strength and recommends that sponsor departments direct regulators to prioritise enabling safe AI innovation. For an estate agent the effect is that no separate AI law governs your day. The CMA, the ICO, HMRC and your redress scheme apply the rules they already have, to AI output as to any other. We found no UK AI statute in force as of October 2026, but check gov.uk and parliament.uk for changes.
What an agent can hand to AI this week
- The first reply to every enquiry. Draft it from the enquiry, approve it, send it. The method and WhatsApp rules are in AI lead follow-up on WhatsApp: a fast, personal reply to every enquiry.
- A listing draft from a property link. Use it as a first draft, then check bedrooms, tenure, parking and the EPC rating against your records. See AI property listing from a link: a description you can trust.
- Photos and short videos, with the label rules in AI virtual staging and property video: the rules for estate agents.
- Questions to your own data. Connect ChatGPT or Claude to your CRM and ask which leads have gone quiet, as explained in ChatGPT and Claude for Estate Agents: Connect Your CRM with MCP.
- The paperwork reminders. Drafts to request ID, chase documents and log them for your AML file, with you doing the checks.
Keep these with you: availability, price, tenure, service charge, any offer or negotiation, any complaint, and every AML decision. A worked example. An enquiry says: "Is the 2-bed on Mill Lane still available, and what is its EPC?" The AI draft may say "Yes, it is rated C." The agent checks the certificate first, because the advert and the reply must match it. If the certificate says D, the line is corrected before sending.
If you already run a UK estate agent system, the AI question is what it does and what it asks you to approve. Formule has comparison pages for the UK systems agents ask about: Alto, Reapit and Street. Each says where the system is strong and who should stay with it.
How Really does it
Really is the AI agent inside Formule, the part that does the work a CRM only records. These are the live facts and nothing beyond them.
- Really works in the Formule app, by voice in the app and on WhatsApp, in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian or Polish.
- New agents are set up by Really in one chat, and the start is free with a 7-day Really trial.
- Leads from ads and portals are captured into one pipeline, and branch managers see every lead.
- Really helps follow up leads and drafts the replies. You approve what goes out, and nothing is sent without that approval.
- Paste a property link and Really turns it into a listing draft and a shareable listing page. You still check every fact and the EPC rating.
- Formule creates AI images and short videos of a property from the Marketing section, using credits.
- Formule connects to Claude and ChatGPT through the Formule MCP server.
- Agencies on the agency plan can have Formule run their Meta lead ads.
Formule has been live for 17 months with 14 agencies on it. Those numbers describe platform activity, not a result you should expect from any one task.
Formule is a CRM, and Really is what makes it more than one. Compliance stays with the agent: Really does not run your AML checks, does not certify a listing, and does not replace your redress scheme or your data protection duties.
Start with one lead source and one listing
Choose the portal or channel that sends you the most enquiries and write your first reply and three follow-ups in your own voice. Take one live listing and check an AI draft against the certificate and your records line by line. Approve every message for a week. You can see how Formule works for UK agents on the Formule UK page, or start free and let Really set up your account in one chat.