Who Owns Property Photos? Copyright Rules Every UK Estate Agent Should Know

Under UK law the photographer owns the copyright in property photos by default, not the estate agent who commissioned them and not the vendor who owns the property. Paying for a shoot buys you a licence to use the images, not ownership of them. Copyright only transfers if it is assigned in writing and signed, under section 90(3) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This catches agents out most often when a property changes hands between agencies and the new agent reuses the previous listing’s images, which is copyright infringement unless permission exists.

Who owns the copyright in property photographs?

The starting position is straightforward and often surprises people. Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, the author of a photograph is the person who took it, and the author is the first owner of the copyright. For property photography, that means the photographer owns the images the moment the shutter closes.

Three things follow from that, and all three catch agents out.

Commissioning does not transfer copyright. Paying a photographer to attend a shoot does not make you the copyright owner, in the same way that buying a book does not make you the owner of the text. You are paying for a service and receiving a licence to use the output. This is different from the position before the 1988 Act came into force, when commissioning a photograph did vest copyright in the commissioner, so older images may sit under different rules.

The vendor owns the property, not the pictures of it. There is no copyright in a building’s appearance that passes to whoever owns it. A homeowner who has paid an agent a fee that included photography still does not own those photographs.

Employment is the main exception. Where a photograph is taken by an employee in the course of their employment, copyright belongs to the employer. So if an agency has a salaried in-house photographer, the agency owns those images. A freelance photographer is not an employee, and this exception does not apply to them, however regularly they work for you.

What is the difference between a licence and an assignment?

This is the distinction that resolves most disputes, and it is worth understanding properly because the words are often used loosely.

An assignment transfers ownership. The copyright leaves the photographer and becomes yours. Section 90(3) of the Act is strict about the formality: an assignment is not effective unless it is in writing signed by or on behalf of the assignor. A verbal agreement does not assign copyright. Nor does an invoice that says “full rights” without a signature. If you believe you own images outright, you should be able to point to a signed document.

A licence grants permission to use the images while the photographer keeps ownership. This is what the overwhelming majority of property photography arrangements actually are, whether or not anyone said so at the time. A licence can be limited in almost any way the parties agree: by who may use it, for how long, in what media, and for what purpose.

The Act also allows a partial assignment under section 90(2), limited either to some of the rights or to part of the copyright term. In practice this is rare in property work, but it is why you occasionally see agreements transferring, say, print rights only.

One further point that matters commercially. Under section 90(4), a licence granted by a copyright owner generally binds anyone who later acquires that copyright. So if a photographer sells their business, existing licences usually survive the sale.

What this means day to day: unless you have a signed assignment, assume you hold a licence, and assume that licence is limited to the purpose it was granted for. Marketing that property, for that agency, during that instruction.

Can a new agent reuse photos from the previous listing?

Not without permission. This is the single most common infringement in property marketing, and it usually happens without anyone intending to do anything wrong.

The pattern is familiar. A property is listed with Agency A, which commissions a photographer. The property does not sell. The vendor moves to Agency B. Someone at Agency B pulls the images from the old Rightmove listing, or the vendor emails them across, and the property goes live again with the same photographs.

Unless the photographer assigned copyright to Agency A in writing, and Agency A then permitted the transfer, Agency B has no licence at all. The fact that the images are publicly visible on a portal grants nobody any rights. Neither does the vendor’s belief that they paid for them.

The cost of getting this wrong is not theoretical. In Absolute Lofts South West London Ltd v Artisan Home Improvements Ltd [2015] EWHC 2608 (IPEC), a company used 21 of another business’s photographs on its website without consent. The court treated the infringement as flagrant, noting the defendant had presented the work in the images as its own, and that its turnover had grown from roughly £226,000 to £498,000 across the relevant period. The claimant sought over £30,000. The court awarded £6,300 in total, the great majority of which was additional damages for flagrancy rather than compensation for the lost licence fee.

That case was not about estate agency, but the principle transfers directly: where an infringer has commercially benefited from images that misrepresent their own work, damages can substantially exceed what a licence would have cost. A licence fee of a couple of hundred pounds is a poor thing to save by comparison.

Two practical protections. First, when you take on an instruction where the property was recently listed elsewhere, commission your own photography rather than inheriting images of unknown provenance. Second, if a vendor supplies images, ask directly who took them and whether they hold rights to pass on. A short question at instruction stage avoids a long conversation with a solicitor later.

Can the vendor or landlord use the photos themselves?

Only if the licence extends to them, and by default it usually does not.

Vendors frequently assume that because the photographs are of their home, and because they paid the agency a fee that covered marketing, the images are theirs. Neither assumption is correct. Owning the subject of a photograph confers no rights in the photograph.

The situations where this surfaces are predictable. A vendor wants to use the images to market the property privately after leaving an agency. A landlord wants to reuse listing photography on a short let platform such as Airbnb, which is a different commercial use entirely. A vendor posts the interior shots on social media to promote their own interior design business.

Each of these is a use beyond the original purpose, and each needs permission. In most cases the photographer will grant it for a modest additional fee, because the work is already done. The problem is almost never the cost. It is that nobody asks.

For agents, the useful move is to set the expectation early. Telling a vendor at instruction that the photography is licensed for marketing the property through your agency, and that other uses can usually be arranged, prevents an awkward conversation at the point the relationship ends.

What should a property photography agreement actually say?

Most disputes trace back to a booking made by text message with no terms attached. A short written agreement removes nearly all of the risk, and it does not need to be complicated. It should be clear on the following.

• Whether it is a licence or an assignment. State it explicitly. If it is an assignment, it must be in writing and signed to be effective

• Who may use the images. Your agency alone, or your agency plus the vendor, or anyone the vendor authorises. These are materially different and worth deciding deliberately

• For how long. The duration of the instruction, a fixed period, or perpetual. Perpetual licences cost more and are worth it if you use images for portfolio and PR after the sale

• In what media. Portals, agency website, social media, print brochures, paid advertising. Paid social advertising is often excluded from standard licences and is the most common accidental breach

• Whether the licence is transferable. If it is, a vendor moving to another agency can pass the images on. If not, they cannot, and both sides should know that from the outset

• Credit and attribution. Whether the photographer needs to be credited, and where

• What happens on non-payment. Many photographers grant the licence only on cleared payment, meaning images used before settlement are technically unlicensed

Note that copyright in a photograph lasts for the life of the photographer plus 70 years. There is no point at which old listing images quietly become free to use.

For what to expect from a shoot itself, see our property shoot day checklist. For portal file specifications, see our guide to Rightmove and Zoopla photo and video specs.

Frequently asked questions

Who owns property photos in the UK, the agent or the photographer?

The photographer, by default. Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 the person who takes a photograph is its author and the first owner of copyright in it. Commissioning and paying for a shoot buys a licence to use the images, not ownership. The main exception is where the photographer is an employee taking photographs in the course of employment, in which case the employer owns the copyright.

Does paying for property photography mean I own the photos?

No. Payment buys the service and a licence to use the resulting images for the agreed purpose. Ownership transfers only through an assignment, which under section 90(3) of the Act is not effective unless it is in writing and signed by the person assigning it. If you need outright ownership, ask for a written assignment at the point of booking and expect it to cost more than a standard licence.

Can an estate agent reuse photos from a previous agent’s listing?

Not without permission. Images being publicly visible on Rightmove or Zoopla does not create any right to reuse them. Unless the photographer assigned copyright in writing and that permission extends to the new agent, reusing the images is infringement. The safest approach when taking on a previously listed property is to commission fresh photography.

Can a vendor use the estate agent’s photos of their own house?

Only if the licence permits it. Owning the property gives the vendor no rights over photographs of it. Common situations that need separate permission include marketing the property privately after leaving the agency, listing it on a short let platform, or using interior shots for an unrelated business. Photographers will usually grant these uses for a modest fee if asked.

What are the penalties for using property photos without permission?

Damages generally start from the licence fee that would have been agreed, known as the user principle, but the court can award additional damages where infringement is flagrant. In Absolute Lofts South West London Ltd v Artisan Home Improvements Ltd [2015] EWHC 2608 (IPEC), 21 photographs used without consent resulted in a total award of £6,300, with the majority attributed to flagrancy rather than the lost licence fee. Costs and the time involved typically exceed the damages themselves.

How long does copyright in a property photograph last?

For the life of the photographer plus 70 years from the end of the year in which they die. In practical terms, no property photograph taken in your working lifetime will fall out of copyright. Old listing images do not become free to use through the passage of time.

Do the same copyright rules apply to property video and drone footage?

Yes, in substance. Video is protected as a film under the same Act, and drone footage is no different in copyright terms from ground-level work. The first owner is normally the person who made it, ownership transfers only by written assignment, and the same licence questions about who, how long, and in what media all apply. Drone work carries separate CAA regulatory requirements, but those are distinct from copyright.