Estate agent threatens to sue Tesco over homes website

Tesco faces a claim for damages from an estate agency after allegations the supermarket giant infringed copyright laws by posting details of homes for sale on its new property website without permission.

Lawyers for Hannells, an estate agency in Derbyshire, said yesterday that they had threatened Tesco with an injunction after the agency discovered that copies of photographs and details of its properties it had placed on the Fish4homes property website had also appeared on Tesco's website.

Fish4homes pulled out of Tesco's online home-selling site, which was launched last week, several days ago, stating that it had received negative feedback from estate agency clients.

Qamer Ghafoor, a partner at Flint Bishop Solicitors in Derby, said that once threatened with an injunction this week, Tesco did remove Hannells photos and details from its site. "We are in discussion with Tesco," he said. "I am investigating a claim for damages and for legal costs for my client. We also want assurance the photos and details will not appear on the Tesco site again."

Tesco launched its website last Saturday with the claims it would "revolutionise the property market". Tescopropertymarket.com, which has already attracted more than a quarter of a million visitors, offers a do-it-yourself home selling service enabling people to advertise and manage their own home sale for a fee of £199, eliminating the need for estate agents, who typically charge up to 3 per cent of the value of any property they sell. Sellers are given a Tesco-branded "for sale" sign but must carry out the work normally performed by an agency. As the site needed a significant number of homes from the first day to attract traffic it signed up Fish4homes as a partner.

Mark Davis, managing director of the Tesco site, said he can understand why "estate agents might view Tesco's entry into the market with scepticism, because competition can be tough".

Meanwhile, Tesco reached an out-of-court settlement with Chiltern Railways yesterday in a dispute relating to the collapse of a tunnel during the construction of a supermarket at Gerrards Cross in 2005.