[marcia]

You may have already read my thread about sacking our estate agents. We had to give them 14 days notice, but instructed them not to alter the brochure or reduce the price, since they couldn't get it right when they were on their last chance.

Today I had a feeling they may have taken our house off the right move website before the 14 days were up - it wouldn't have bothered us really but thought we'd just check and see! :no

They (polite language I can tell you they have been called some stuff much stonger in our house tonight!!)

have altered the advert on right move, used the new description and photos we provided them with and reduced the price by £25,000 - we have not signed any of these alterations off and had given two people employed by them strict instuctions not to do this!!

I have emailed them asking them to remove the advert and since they are in breach of our agreement to stop advertising our property anywhere with immediate effect. I have also emailed the right move company and asked them to investigate, and reprimand them for their actions.

They will be getting a visit from Kev in the morning with their advertising board in his hand - he is going to walk into the shop with it and ask them where they would like it shoving!!! Then demand to see the manager - (he won't let me go cos I'd punch someone!!!)

So we can strongly advise that our personal experience with WILLIAM H BROWN has not been a good one and they will not be getting any recommendations from us!

Would you take it to the estate agent ombudsman since they are in breach of contract or is it all too much stress and hassle to add onto what is already a stressfull time in our lives?? :confused:

[Smiler]

Would you take it to the estate agent ombudsman since they are in breach of contract or is it all too much stress and hassle to add onto what is already a stressfull time in our lives?? :confused:

Marcia, thats appalling! What do these agents stop at?

If it was me, yes, most definately. I know how much you have on your plate right now but it will only serve as a warning to others if you can find the time and effort to do so. Plus it might keep your mind off the other stress. :laugh

Seriously, we've just had to deal with the ombudsman/registrar for data protection. They were much quicker than we had hoped both in repsonding and dealing with the issue.

Follow up your email to right move by snail mail too, they seem to take more notice.

Good luck and I suppose there's no chance you could be outside the agents with a camera when Kev 'does the business'? We love pics we do. :D

[kiwidebs]

If you can do it then it would probably make you feel a bit better if nothing else. I can't believe they reduced your price without you okaying it :eek: . Def scum of the earth!!

[Avalon]

They will be getting a visit from Kev in the morning with their advertising board in his hand - he is going to walk into the shop with it and ask them where they would like it shoving!!! Then demand to see the manager - (he won't let me go cos I'd punch someone!!!)
:

:nice1 Way to go! Direct action - straight and to the point.

Id also be on the side of writing to the ombudsman. Even if you never send the letter - getting all your frustrations down in a letter, point by point will get it out of your head. And if you send it - it makes life uncomfortable at least for the agents.

I do hope you get better luck in future with this.

Till then {{{HUGS}}}. And a shot of JD helps in these cases I find!

[firstkings]

Don't forget to photocopy or otherwise all correspondance (and date the letters).

Keep a written record (date every entry) of all conversations etc with everyone.

Bitter experience!

Cheers

David

[zardell]

I've only just read this thread and to be truthful, I've had to read it twice, because I couldn't believe it.

Marcia, this is absolutely disgraceful.

Kev, send Marcia in with the board !!

Can you sue estate agents ?? Dunno.....but I would certainly put it in writing to the ombudsman. With a little luck, you wont be in the UK to hear of the outcome, but it would be worth it to bring these sharks and others like them to the attention of the general public.

Take care,

Julie n Steve.

xx

[Smiler]

Marcia

What happened? We're dying to know.............................

[pinkpiggy]

Yes, me too... i've been thinking about you all day.

Paula

[marcia]

Sorry guys for not updating sooner. Had a really busy and stressfull week (as you can imagine!!) two lots of shipper here, one for a full morning and one for a full afternoon, (looking like a 40 footer is needed :wah )plus a new agent for a couple of hours one afternoon, trying to go through all our stuff in the loft and minimise it all, plus inbetween all this, taking Mika to the doctors and keeping a close eye on him (he has had a bad bout of toncillitus, temperate well over a hundred :eek:) and entertaining 3 boys now the school hols have started. (Talk about juggling!!!)

Well on Weds morning we had the first shipper out so kev couldn't go down to the agents till after lunch, afraid he duffed out of taking the sign with him, said he would have looked a bit of a numpty walking through the town centre with it!

As you would expect the agents were extreamly unhelpful, trying to turn the situation around and blame us!!! :no - saying we were in breach of contract for taking the sign out of the garden, however since this is an optional advertising media and we did tell them we were taking it down and asked them to remove it, we felt that they were just looking for excuses. But the manager Kev needed to talk to wasn't in surprise surprise. But he was going to ring kev - they said they had taken the house off the market and the file was on his desk. So if they were in the right why did they do that???

Later that afternoon, the manager did ring kev back and said it was because he had been shouting and abusive to his staff???? Kev told me he never swore or raised his voice in the shop - admitidly his does talk loud anyway but he knows how and when to keep his cool, and had again given the lady who was our actual negotiator in the shop praise for how she had been.

Anyway the long and short of it is that we never even got an apology from them, they were loath to even hand over a copy of the code of practise and ombudmans details when asked (our negotiator actually said she knew where they were and got a copy for Kev) They have taken the house off the market, and said the contract is finished - (too right it is!!) But we still feel that they were in breach of contract since we never signed off the new brochure or agreed to reduce the price.

Reading through the ombudmans stuff I am not sure if it is worth sending a letter since we have lost no money over their actions and all we would want is an apology - seems alot of hassle to go through for that. I will just bad mouth them to anyone who asks!!

The new agent knows all the stuff that has happen so hopefully will be on the ball and making sure everything is done by the book!

Never really had dealings with estate agents before this, heard all the bad press about them but never realised how low some of them will stoop. So beware all those about to step into the shark infested waters - it's a pretty rough ride for some!! Good luck!

[mossum]

Hi marcia ,

well glad it all seems to have come out in the wash as it was - your agents sounded to me very much like our 1st agents - usless & unprofessional ! I'm so so glad we changed when we did .

Its not exactly rocket science is it ????

Good luck with the school holidays - just lock them in the garage & have a few G&T's - then it wont seem as bad :cheers

vic x

[Smiler]

Hi Marcia

I think you're right there, you can do more damage now just by spreading your story around. The ombudsman stuff isn't easy, I'm sure they make it so that every tom dick etc isn't complaining. But when there's a justifiable complaint like yours hmmm.

If all you want is an apology, it's not going to be forthcoming now, they've had they chance to do so and blew it. How thick skinned and ignorant to think they've done nothing wrong. :mad:

Good luck with the new agent and hopefully, they'll keep their eye on the ball and you'll be off to PN in no time.

I wish I'd known about mossum's school holiday trick when my one was little. ;)

[pinkpiggy]

Good luck with the school holidays - just lock them in the garage & have a few G&T's - then it wont seem as bad

Apparently my FIL did this when my OH and his brother and sister were young. He's never been brilliant with small children and MIL came home one day to find them all locked in the garage :uhoh

Doesn't seem to have done them any harm ;)