Thousands of customers at risk after leading estate agency partner suffers data breach

CUSTOMERS of one of Webbers estate agents, one of the largest in Somerset, have been warned their personal information has been compromised after data was hacked.

Thousands of people who have had dealings with the firm during at least the past 15 years could now be at risk and have been recommended to reset their passwords to email accounts ‘as a precaution’.

Other, unnamed estate agents were said to have also had customer details hacked at the same time.

Webbers managing director Malcolm Prescott sent emails to customers late on Monday evening (October 5) to alert them to what had happened.

Mr Prescott said the issue lay with a third party organisation which was a business partner of Webbers Property Services Ltd and other estate agents.

Webbers has 13 offices across Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall, including in Wellington, Wiveliscombe, Minehead, and Dulverton.

The firm was founded more than 100 years ago and last year was named best regional estate agency group in the industry ESTAS national awards.

It was also recognised in 2025 as the best agent UK and a gold winner for the Westcountry by the Guild of Property Professionals.

Mr Prescott said: “We are obliged to inform you that we have been made aware, at approximately 4 pm today of a security breach that may have affected your personal data, ie, your name, address, and contact information, telephone number, and e-mail address.

“I have been reassured by our business partners that steps have been taken to contain the breach.

“I would like to stress that our own security has not been breached, rather, data was compromised via third party organisations.

“We are clearly working closely with these organisations to fully understand the scale of the breach and with that in mind, I would expect to be in a position to clarify further detail within the next 24 hours.

“We are sorry to cause you any alarm, and we sincerely hope that this breach will not affect you, however, we would sooner act swiftly to ensure that you are fully aware.”

However, by Thursday evening there had been no further information provided for customers.

Mr Prescott warned customers that if they received any suspicious communication such as phishing emails, or contact from anybody ‘positioning themselves as Webbers Property Services Ltd that you do not know’, they should not respond or click on links and should inform the company’s head office team by calling Karlie Baker-Kidwell on 01271-347891 or emailing her at [email protected].

Ms Baker-Kidwell as the firm’s data protection officer has reported the data breach to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO).

Inquiries of Webbers by this newspaper resulted in a short statement being received which said: “We are investigating an IT incident which affected a third party service provider.

“Our present understanding is this involved basic contact details for a subset of our clients.

“We are liaising closely with our clients and the relevant authorities on a precautionary basis.

“We now understand that there are a number of other estate agents who use the same third party providers experiencing the same issues.”

An ICO spokesperson said confirmed it had received a breach report from Webbers and was assessing the information supplied by the company.

They said advice for anybody worried about the leak of their personal information was available on the ICO website.

The ICO advises that not all data breaches need to be reported, but should be where it is considered likely there was a high risk to an individual’s rights and freedoms.

It said companies then needed to tell the people affected by the breach without delay and inform them about any steps being taken to mitigate the effects of the breach and provide advice on what to do to protect themselves.