Policy Update: Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024

The DMCCA legislation is intended to make sure that consumers are not misled, such as through fake reviews, and that businesses are transparent. Discover key points from the new legislation and changes we have made in order to comply.

As many of you may know, a new consumer law around reviews came into force on April 6th, 2025. The implementation of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (‘DMCCA’) impacts all reviews and needs to be fully complied with by July 5th 2025.

HomeViews and Rightmove are taking steps to achieve full compliance, but there are also requirements for Partners and other companies collecting reviews. Potential financial repercussions are significant for organisations found to be in breach, with fines up to 10% of annual turnover (read the Act in full here).

This legislation is intended to ensure that consumers are not misled, such as through fake reviews, and that businesses are transparent.

Here we highlight some key points from the new legislation and explain changes we have made in order to comply.

1. Take steps to ensure no fake reviews are published

Verified reviews have always been at the heart of what HomeViews does. We have historically taken significant steps to ensure reviews are verified and that only genuine resident experiences are shared on HomeViews. We feel confident that the processes we already have in place ensure we comply with this requirement. We will be taking more steps to make it even clearer when a review is not verified.

2. If an incentive is offered, it must be made apparent

Many of our partners offer residents an incentive to write a review. This is allowed, as long as it is offered to all residents and not linked to a rating.

NEW: From the 5th of July, all reviews where an incentive was offered will have the following wording published next to them:

3. Tracking incentives being offered

While we can track promotions set up through our website, we are not always aware when Partners run their own competitions or prize draws.

NEW: When we have set up a promotion on HomeViews, we will automatically disclose that an incentive was offered. This will be done for all historical reviews on HomeViews.

New: In many instances we are not aware of a promotion taking place, for example a prize set up for a hamper. Going forward, we will ask residents on their review forms if they were offered an incentive to write the review so we can disclose this.

4. We must not publish reviews in a misleading manner

The guidance says that a ‘misleading manner’ includes ‘giving greater prominence to positive consumer reviews over negative ones.’ One of the marketing features we have offered Partners is a ‘pinned review’ on the HomeViews site, where a review can be highlighted and pinned to the top of the reviews page.

NEW: HomeViews will be removing the pinned review feature.

As a final reminder, this not only applies to HomeViews but to every business that collects and displays reviews. Please ensure that you are inviting ALL residents to write a review, not incentivising positive reviews, and ensuring only genuine residents are writing reviews.

We very much welcome this new legislation as it will benefit and protect both businesses and consumers by providing trusted data and insights from reviews.

Please ensure your team are incentivised on the number of resident reviews collected and not the score they are receiving – transparency and honest feedback to improve product and service is crucial for your business and ours.

HomeViews is the only independent review platform for residential developments in the UK. Prospective buyers and tenants use it to make an informed decision on where to live based on insights from carefully verified resident reviews. Part of Rightmove since February 2024, we’re working with developers, house builders, operators, housing associations and the Government to give residents a voice, recognise high performers and to help improve standards across the industry.

We believe the best information about a residential development comes from the people living there. Owners and tenants have a lot of useful information to share with their prospective neighbours, not just on the property itself and its locality, but also on the development and building management.

Does it matter how recent reviews are?

We often encourage Partners to regularly collect reviews. This keeps them in the running for our annual Resident Choice Awards, but it’s also something that consumers value.

Research by Power Reviews found that 64% of consumers said they were more likely to buy a product with fewer, more recent reviews than if it had a higher volume of reviews published three or more months ago.

44% of consumers in that same study wanted to ideally be able to find reviews written within the past month. And 62% would not purchase a product if the only reviews available were published a year or more ago.

How many reviews do you need?

Brightlocal data is again the best place to turn to understand the broad spread of opinions shown by consumers. In 2025, 14% of consumers wanted to see 100+ reviews in order to trust a company’s average star rating. However, the majority of consumers said that 20-49 reviews was enough for them to trust an average rating (33%), while 22% said that 50-99 reviews were enough.

How much should you engage with reviews?

Consumers are more consistent on how much they want to see companies responding to reviews. 89% were likely to use a business that repsonded to all reviews, whether positive or negative. Far fewer (55%) were likely to use a business that only responded to negative reviews.

As we stated above, responding to positive and negative reviews clearly demonstrates to prospective residents that you care.