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Property Stylists

A guide published by Dotto · contact sheet

Property presented by the rules, frame by frame

Property Stylists is a guide to presenting a home by the rules, written and published by Dotto. It reads the official pages on the pictures and words that advertise a home, and on the furniture that fills it.

This guide reads the rules the way an editor reads a contact sheet: kept frames circled, struck frames crossed. In NSW, Fair Trading’s guideline for property agents says photos used to advertise a property must be accurate, clearly labelled and not misleading. For the rooms themselves, ACCC Product Safety says the best way to stop furniture tipping is to fix it to the wall or the floor.

Three rolls

  1. Roll 1Edited photos, and where the editing stopsTouched-up pictures, added or removed features, lighting, zoomed views, old photos, and the new NSW rule for a rented home.
  2. Roll 2Location shots and the words beside a pictureWhen a photo needs the label ‘location shot’, what a caption about distance should say, and what the law says about land.
  3. Roll 3Furniture that stays standingWhich pieces topple, who is most at risk, and ACCC Product Safety’s advice on floors, anchors, drawers and televisions.
A bright living room with a grey corner sofa, cushions, a jute rug, low timber tables, a small white chest of drawers against a painted brick wall and a potted plant.
A living room, arranged and photographed: one frame of the kind these guides read, from the rug to the light through the windows. Photo by ClickerHappy on Pixabay

Why circles and crosses

The NSW guideline sorts its own examples into two kinds: acceptable practices in photographic advertisements, and photographic advertisements likely to mislead, give the wrong impression or be unclear. Each strip on these pages marks its frames the same way, with a china-marker circle for the first kind and a cross for the second, and every example a strip draws is stated, with its source, in the page beneath it.

Some of what is struck is obvious once seen. Consumer Affairs Victoria’s example is a real estate agent advertising ‘beachfront lots’ that do not front the beach. Some is quieter: a representation can mislead even when it is partly true.

Who the rules speak to

The photo guideline is written for real estate agents in NSW. The law under it reaches further: section 18 of the Australian Consumer Law bans misleading or deceptive conduct by anyone acting in trade or commerce. The ACCC’s plain version for every business is that a business must be able to prove any claim it makes or advertises. How far any of these reaches a particular stylist, photographer or owner is a question for a solicitor, and the guides do not answer it for anyone.

Even publishers are not wholly outside the rules. Consumer Affairs Victoria explains that information providers such as newspapers, magazines and broadcasters are exempt from liability for misleading or deceptive conduct , but can still be liable when they publish a misleading or deceptive advertisement.

Product Safety’s furniture advice is for every home, and especially for one where young children live or might visit.

What this guide leaves out

Insurance and damage questions about hired furniture are left out, because the official sources gathered for this guide do not answer them. Price wording in listings is left out too. The full texts are on NSW Fair Trading’s advertising guidelines and ACCC Product Safety’s toppling furniture guide.