1 Star Review
Aug 13,2018
By:
'TPK'
Aug 13,2018
Branch: Manchester, St Georges House, 56 Peter St
Services: Sales (as a Vendor)
Sold price: £450000
Would you recommend?: No
Postcode: NW6
Branch: Manchester, St Georges House, 56 Peter St
Sales (as a Vendor)
Sold price: £450000
Postcode: NW6
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people found
this helpful
One day I received a letter through the post from a company called Express Estate Agents (EEA) claiming that they could sell my property within 30 days. They said that they could sell my property for £513k. I was highly sceptical at the time. Not only had I never heard of them but two household name Estate Agents had failed to sell the property over a course of 7 months. Initially I dealt with Daryl Hamilton who seemed nice enough. Although he then passed me over to KK. I am not going to use the full names of people in the company to protect myself. I had a conversation with KK who explained how EEA worked but did not give me enough assurance to agree to anything. We agreed to meet so that he could explain further, this was on 13th September. Then over a 2-3 week period KK kept sending me a generic link to my inbox telling me to sign a contract; which I naturally kept repelling because we had not yet met. All the while he kept claiming that he had tried to call me. I had no missed calls on my phone! I then eventually arranged for him to come and see me on 26th September. However, he reneged on this meeting, instead continuing to tell me that he had tried to call me; when all I had received from him was the same generic email. He then got very shirty with me and if it wasn't for Daryl, EEA would have lost the sale. Daryl then arranged for me to see someone call DM who was very good at his job and his assurances convinced us to sign. DM set an asking price saying that he said was based on the sale of local properties in the area similar to ours as he was the valuer.
We then had a photographer come to our place, he arrived over an hour late. However, the following day we got our first viewing. This person then put an offer down two days later that was under the asking price. We then got a call from OH (the negotiator) who told me that the bidder 'could not go any further above asking price' I declined the offer. He then told me that he was going to 'set everything up so that I could accept the bid'. He ignored the fact that it was under the asking price. I declined the offer and almost immediately she raised her bid which I accepted as with two small children we really needed to sell. This was still £7,000 less than the asking price. OH then passed me on to the progression team. CR was the clerk. She told me that the buyer wanted to move quickly and that I had to make the outlay of costs on our side like solicitors fees, a management pack etc. I completed multiple pieces of paperwork turning them all around in 24 hours and was even encouraged to use their solicitors whom 'worked quickly'.
All the while we were waiting for a valuation from the buyer's side. CR then went off sick and nobody else in the office was able to progress our sale and we had a distinct lack of communication from EEA. Nobody from EEA was working on our case. This meant in order to get a valuation I had to contact the valuers myself rather than EEA. It took 3 weeks from the offer date to the valuation taking place. Unfortunately, we received a downvaluation for our property of £25,000 less than the asking price. At this point EEA were extremely poor in their response. CR was defensive and aggressive and almost blamed me for the fact that it happened. OH exonerated himself from the whole situation and told me that I should talk to the buyer directly. He refused to do any negotiating on my behalf and EEA refused to accept any reduction in their commission to help progress the sale. After this point the Solicitor that they recommended was atrocious. They dealt with queries in a ponderous fashion and did not work quickly at all, as EEA had promised. Out of a list of 20 queries, 15 I had to chase with the respective authorities myself in order to get them resolved. Even on the day of the sale the defensive and uphelpful attitude of the Solicitor recommended by EEA meant that we almost did not complete on the day. EEA were anonymous for large spells of the sale. They were really good about collecting their commission at the end. On the actual sale date EEA mentioned in passing that it was their staff party and no staff would be available to help if there were any queries. There were many on the day and the completion almost fell through. Overall we paid £6000 for EEA and their solicitor and with the beauty of hindsight, our money would have been so much better spent with another organisation. In future when we plan to sell again we will list without an estate agent as they add very little value. Avoid using EEA.
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