Redress and CMP on Your Website: Showing Scheme Membership Properly

Scheme logos often sit in the footer of an agency website. They are easy to add and easy to forget about. This guide explains which memberships are legal requirements, what the rules say about showing them online, and how to present them so they actually reassure clients. It is a summary, not legal advice.

Redress for estate agents

Under the Estate Agents (Redress Scheme) Order 2008, anyone doing residential estate agency work must be a member of an approved redress scheme.^[1] Business Companion's guidance for estate agents names the two approved schemes as Property Redress and The Property Ombudsman, and notes that the employing business joins rather than each individual employee.^[2] An agent who fails to join can be issued with a penalty charge notice of £1,000, and the estate agency team may also consider whether the agent is fit to carry on estate agency work.^[1]

There is no specific rule in that guidance requiring sales agents to show the logo on their website, but naming your scheme is good practice. It tells clients where to go if a complaint cannot be resolved with you, and it is information people expect to find.

Redress for letting agents and property managers

In England, membership of a government-approved redress scheme has been a legal requirement for letting agents and property managers since 1 October 2014. Government guidance lists the approved schemes as The Property Ombudsman and the Property Redress Scheme, and says local authorities can impose a fine of up to £5,000 on an agent or manager who has not joined.^[3] That guidance dates from 2018, so check the current position with the schemes themselves before you rely on the names in it.

Client money protection

Letting agents and property managers in England who hold client money must belong to a government-approved client money protection scheme. The 2019 regulations on client money protection set out what an agent must do with the certificate the scheme provides. Regulation 4 says the agent must:^[4]

• display the certificate at each of its premises in England where it deals face to face with clients, in a place where it is likely to be seen;
• publish a copy of the certificate on the agent's website, if it has one;
• produce a copy of the certificate, free of charge, to anyone who may reasonably require it.

Those requirements took effect on 1 April 2019.^[4]

Naming schemes beside your fees

Separately from the certificate rule, the fee publication rules for letting agents in England require a statement, alongside the fee list, saying that you are a member of a client money protection scheme or redress scheme you are required to join, and giving the name of the scheme.^[5] So a letting agent's website needs at least:

1. a fee list;
2. beside it, a statement naming the redress scheme and, where applicable, the client money protection scheme;
3. a copy of the client money protection certificate.

Wales

In Wales, Rent Smart Wales licence conditions require letting agents to belong to a client money protection scheme and an independent letting and management redress scheme, and to hold professional indemnity insurance.^[6] The Welsh guidance does not set out the same website publishing requirement for scheme details as the English rules, but showing your memberships clearly is still sensible for the same reasons.

Using logos honestly

A logo is a claim. Showing a scheme logo tells visitors that you are a current member. Trading Standards guidance on membership logos, published through Business Companion, tells businesses to be careful when a membership ends through lapse or cancellation, and says a logo should not be used without authorisation.^[7] Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, displaying a trust mark or similar without authorisation is one of the practices that is always considered unfair, so this is not merely cosmetic.^[8]

Practical steps for your site:

• Only show logos for current memberships. Keep a short list of your memberships, with renewal dates, and check the website against it whenever one renews.
• Make each logo checkable. Link it to your entry on the scheme's own register or members' search, where one exists, so a visitor can confirm it.
• Use the scheme's own artwork. Schemes usually provide approved logo files and may have rules on how they are used. Do not recreate or alter them.
• Give each logo a text alternative. Screen reader users need to know what the logo is. "The Property Ombudsman member" is better than an empty or generic description.
• Do not let logos stand in for the statement. For letting agents, the written statement beside the fee list is what the rules ask for. The logo is an extra.

Where to put everything

A complaints page that points to redress

Redress schemes exist for complaints that an agency has not been able to resolve itself, so a clear complaints page is the natural partner to your scheme statement. A useful complaints page for an agency website covers:

1. How to complain to you first, with a named role or inbox, not just a general contact form.
2. What happens next, including when the complainant can expect an acknowledgement and a final response under your procedure.
3. Which redress scheme you belong to, named in full, with a link to the scheme's own website.
4. When the scheme can be used, which normally means after your own procedure has been completed or a set time has passed. Take the details from your scheme's rules rather than guessing them.

Linking to this page from the footer and from the fee page means a client who needs it can find it from anywhere on the site.

Keeping it right over time

Certificates expire and get reissued. A certificate image uploaded at launch can quietly go out of date. Put the certificate's expiry date in your diary, and when a new certificate arrives, replace the copy on the website the same day. If your website has a care plan, include scheme checks in the annual review.