Policy on publication of reviews

October 2025

Introduction

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC Act) creates a new banned practice relating to fake reviews. It sets out behaviour that is automatically unfair and illegal. It covers fake reviews, concealed incentivised reviews and requires us not to publish consumer reviews (and information derived from them) in a misleading way.

The key message is this: any review that we publish, or ask another to publish, must be based on a person’s genuine experience of a product or service and that no incentive has been provided to the reviewer.

If we publish reviews, we must also take steps to ensure that they are not misleading or false. The new laws cover not only the reviews themselves but also the publication of information contained within those reviews.

Reviews can take various forms, including text (for example, a written blog or a comment posted under a product listing on a website), speech (for example, a verbal opinion expressed in a video on a sharing platform) and graphic representations (for example, a star rating appearing next to a restaurant’s name in search engine results or a thumbs up next to a ‘helpful’ review). While online reviews have become very popular as consumers increasingly research or purchase products online, consumer reviews can also be found in analogue forms such as within marketing letters.

Persimmon will also take steps to ensure that all published reviews are current and not misleading.

Persimmon’s Policy

Persimmon will not:

(1) Publish (or procure or instruct the publication of) any review that it knows or suspects is fake.
(2) Incentivise any person by any means (this could include (but is not limited to) money, discounts or vouchers or the provision of extra items) to provide a positive/favourable review or rating. This includes asking another to provide such incentives.
(3) Conceal from a published review any commission (be that cash or vouchers or any other type of reward) given or promised to a reviewer to thank that customer for their time (this concerns a situation where a third-party media company (for example) publishes a review on our behalf, and that third party has offered any commission to the reviewer).
(4) Publish a review that has been amended or redacted so that it is misleading.
(5) Publish a review about a particular service or product and represent it as being a review about another service or product.
(6) Select just positive reviews or ratings for publication.

Persimmon will:

1. If a product changes over time, check old published reviews and ratings (about such product) to ensure that they are not misleading in any way.
2. Promptly remove from publication (or procure this if such a review is published by another at Persimmon’s direction) any review that it knows, believes or suspects to be fake, misleading or incentivised.

Specific reviews and actions

HBF Star Rating	Persimmon’s website and marketing materials will display only the latest available and published HBF star rating.
Customer stories/testimonials	1. Persimmon will not offer any payment (whether cash, vouchers or other reward) to a customer as a condition of providing a favourable review. 2. In circumstances where Persimmon provides a voucher or payment to thank a customer for their time (in providing a story, testimonial or filming/recording), Persimmon will ensure that the following text is added to the header on this "Customer stories" page on its website and also to all linked stories/testimonials: [ for the main page ] : "These customer stories contain the genuine opinions of the individuals featured. They are all Persimmon Homes customers who were thanked for their time and where appropriate, for letting us photograph their homes with a retail voucher." [ for individual stories pages ]: "This customer story contains the genuine opinions of the customer[s] featured who was/were a Persimmon Homes customer in [YEAR] and we thanked them for their time and (where appropriate) for letting us photograph their homes with a retail voucher." 3. Persimmon will place wording beneath each customer story/testimonial as follows: "For other customer stories click here [LINK to main customer stories page on Persimmon website] and you can find our Trustpilot reviews here [ insert link ]". 4. Persimmon will retain the following records: (i) that each participant acknowledges and agrees that, while they will receive a voucher as thanks for their participation, that this in no way should affect the content or sentiments expressed by the participants during the interview/recording and that they are free to share any and all views relating to their property purchase; and (ii) that prior to publication the participant has reviewed the copy and confirms in writing that it represents a true and accurate reflection of their experience with Persimmon Homes. Matters (i) and (ii) should be dealt with for all published stories/testimonials at the date of issuance of this Policy.
Trustpilot reviews	Persimmon will ensure that all marketing materials that reference the Trustpilot score are current. A clear date (e.g. "Updated on [ date ]" should be included with the summary if a static reference is included.
Customer Reviews	These are usually publicised on Facebook. Customers are invited to post pictures of their new home using the hashtag #Lovemypersimmonhome. Customers are usually offered the chance to win a voucher for £100. We are content that this should not breach the guidance but any change to this will be brought to the staff’s attention by way of an update to this Policy.