Tesco’s property website has been threatened with legal action as thousands of estate agents demand that their housing stock be removed.

Solicitors for Hannells, an 11-branch company in Derbyshire, have written to Tesco demanding an undertaking that it will not again show 1,100 houses on the tescopropertymarket.com website that had appeared this week.

Tesco launched its property portal five days ago, listing details of more than 300,000 homes for sale, mostly provided by the fish4homes website. By Tuesday, fish4homes had terminated its agreement with Tesco amid complaints over Tesco’s strategy for the site.

Agents’ details could have remained on the site until the end of October under break provisions in the agreement, but The Times has learnt that more than 4,000 agents subscribing to fish4homes have demanded that their properties be removed immediately from tescopropertymarket.com.

Tesco will lose the right to show details of more than 250,000 homes on its site, which allows home-owners to sell their properties directly for a one-off fee of £199.

Qamer Ghafoor, a partner at Flint Bishops, solicitors for Hannells, said that he had written to Tesco on Wednesday threatening the retailer with an injunction unless it removed Hannells’ property details. The threat was accompanied by a demand for damages and costs. Tesco removed the Hannells properties on Thursday “but has not admitted liability”, Mr Ghafoor said.

A letter sent yesterday to Tesco’s City solicitors Berwin Leighton Paisner demands legal costs and an undertaking that Tesco will not repost Hannells properties.

This week Spicerhaart, one of London and the South East’s largest agency groups and a member of the fish4homes network, pulled all online advertising of its housing stock from tescopropertymarket.com over concerns that the site sould conflict with its business.

Fish4homes said: “A substantial number of agents and their properties have asked to be removed [from the Tesco site].” Fish4homes has more than 7,000 agents signed up to its site.

Last night tescopropertymarket. com was still listing more than 66,000 homes for sale in and around London and 57,000 homes in and around Manchester, mostly under a fish4homes banner. The Tesco site might also seem confusing. The most expensive home in and around London is listed as a £351,500,000 two-bedroom flat in East London, while a plot without planning permission in East Sheen is priced at £100,000,000. House-hunters looking for a pad ten times cheaper on tescopropertymarket.com could find solace in a ten-bedroom Hampstead house priced at £10,000,000, which may be more accurately listed.

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