Haart

I am not surprised I'm not the only one who has had a lousy experience with Haart.

They sold our property last year having given me all the stuff about having a 'huge database of people wanting just my sort of house in just my area' and wonderful virtual tours and floorplans on the Internet. We were being pressed by the seller of our next property and went with Haarts for the 'hassle-free' service they promised, despite the higher-than-average fees. We thought we'd get what we paid for.

What we actually got was a service which was lacklustre, inaccurate, slapdash and definitely very average. I had to send the brochure details back three times before they were correct - well actually they still weren't quite correct in a couple of very minor details, but as I said we were short of time. It took 3 weeks to get the floorplan done - and then only because I phoned and complained for the third time and the manager came out and did it himself. The picture in the first and largest newspaper advert was awful and they refused to put in another large ad to compensate, despite getting no viewings at all from it. We had to chase important information that Haart should have been bringing to us. Etc, etc that's just a sample.

In the end, we were so appalled by the service that we put in a formal complaint and were offered a derisory amount off the bill in compensation, which we refused.

Instead, we paid a proportion of their fee which we considered was reasonable - about 2/3 - and which was an average of local estate agent and Internet fees at the time.

Haart are now taking us to court for the balance, saying that we breached the contract by not paying the full amount. There are two sides to every contract and they certainly did not uphold their obligations. If they had done as they promised we would have paid in full with thanks. Who committed a breach of contract? Not us.