Mashroom, the start-up property firm that bought Emoov out of administration earlier this year, has been reported to the advertising watchdog.

A complainant drew attention to claims on the home page.

These said: “Why emoov?”

Smaller text beneath stated: “We’ve got you covered when it comes to selling your home. Rated the UK’s No. 1 Hybrid Estate Agent for the past three years”.

Further down the page, under the heading “Why our customers love us”, was a carousel of Trustpilot reviews, some of which dated from January 2018.

Beneath that the page featured the Trustpilot and Google logos accompanied by emoov’s rating and the number of reviews it had acquired on those sites.

Estate Agency Insights and Strategies told the Advertising Standards Authority that emoov had only been trading in its current iteration since February 2019.

It challenged whether the following claims were misleading and could be substantiated:

1 “Rated the UK’s No.1 Hybrid Estate Agent for the past 3 years”;
2 the inclusion of Trustpilot reviews from prior to February 2019; and
3 the aggregated Trustpilot and Google review count and ratings, which included scores from prior to 2019.

A spokesperson for the ASA said: “We approached Mashroom with the concerns that had been raised. They provided an assurance that they would remove the claims.”

Yesterday emoov – which charges £895 – said on its home page that in 2018, customers saved £4.5m combined. It also showed how it was voted best online estate agent between 2015 and 2018 inclusively. Emoov, in its original format, was founded and owned by Russell Quirk before it went into administration last December.