“I have never in all my years received service that ......”
1 Star Review
Oct 01,2012
By:
'Abby'
Oct 01,2012
Branch: London, 213 Victoria Park Road
Services: Sales (as a Buyer)
Would you recommend?: No
Postcode:
Branch: London, 213 Victoria Park Road
Sales (as a Buyer)
Postcode:
2
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I have never in all my years received service that was so consistently bad I felt compelled to write an online review.
LONG STORY:
I had the misfortune of Sovereign House being the estate agents representing the property I just purchased. To say that the property was purchased successfully despite them is an understatement¢â‚¬Â¦ we nearly pulled out of the purchase because of them.
When we initially visited Sovereign House to register with them, the estate agent had incorrectly taken down my email address, so I was not receiving any property emails from them. Three weeks later, I went to ask why I hadn't received anything. Turns out that Matthew Keegan (the guy who I would later have to suffer as the agent for the property we purchased), had taken it down incorrectly.
Soon after, we then started viewing properties. On one occasion, he cancelled on me, already 15 mins late, with me waiting for him in the cold, outside the property. His excuse was that there was bad traffic, due to some road works. I asked him to walk to the property, since it was less than 5 mins away, pretty much on the same road as Sovereign House. he said "No" and that he would ask the tenant to let me in, if they were at home. When I viewed the property I asked the tenant to let there landlord know, since he/she is paying Sovereign House a significant sum and would be appalled to hear that the tenant had been asked to view the property to prospective buyers.
Once we found a property, we had some complications with the sale, since there were only 65 years left on the leasehold. We had to wait a few weeks for the property owner to come back to us to confirm that she had been given a price for buying into the shared freehold and that she would go ahead and do so at the time of completion. I had made it clear that this was a make or break point for us and we would not spend hundreds on a detailed valuation until this had been confirmed. Matthew clearly did not like this delay and on multiple occasions called/emailed me with outright lies, stating that the information we required had now been provided to my solicitor and I should proceed with the valuation. On each occasion I would call my solicitor, who would confirm that Matthew had recently called and she had informed him that she was still waiting for the requested information from the seller's solicitor. As he continued to be frustrated, I even received threats, saying that the seller was looking for somewhere and was unhappy with the delay and was considering taking the property off the market. It got so frustrating, being sent on these wild goose chases, that I informed Matthew that he should not contact me directly and all enquires/requests should go directly to my IFA or solicitor.
In the meantime, concerned that if I was being lied to, who knows what the seller was being told, I asked my solicitor to pass on my contact details to the seller, so that she could contact me directly if she had any concerns.
Unsurprisingly, she called and said that she was confused over the delay, since Matthew had told her the detailed valuation had been booked in for "next week", but when "next week" came and no more information was forthcoming, Matthew had not returned her email enquiry and had not given her any update. She also confirmed that she had made no such comment regarding taking the property off the market and that she had already made a complaint to Sovereign House about Matthew, since she found him aggressive and unpleasant to deal with.
It's a joke I have even more to report, but the tradespeople I engaged to undertake survey's at the property, also had a negative experience. One of them literally said ¢â‚¬Ëœwhat is with your estate agent?', after she found him unhelpful and disinterested when she was trying to gain access to the property.
SHORT STORY:
Sovereign House (Matthew Keegan in particular) is unprofessional and unpleasant to deal with from start to finish. Lying to achieve their objective is apparently acceptable business behaviour. I (the buyer), the seller and some of the tradespeople undertaking survey all had caused for complaint. My interactions with Sovereign House became so stressful, I asked them never to contact me directly.
THE END:
Why do it to yourself? They may lose you the sale (either as buyer or vendor), I nearly pulled out it was so unpleasant to deal with them. Use someone else.
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The events have been both poorly and inaccurately describe to say the least. I would not like to respond to allegations of miss entered contact details and late appointments as these are totally un-provable events which Abigail clearly uses to discredit my performance prior to giving any actual facts about her experience with dealing with me or my company.
There was one underlining problem that I faced with Abigail as a buyer. The property she chose to buy required a lease extension which can take some weeks to create, analyse and complete by both her and the vendor’s solicitors. In this case Abigail informed her solicitor to run the lease extension AND all of the legal work before booking a survey. Now technically there is nothing wrong with this but after the lease was fully created the Abigail still chose to finish all the legal work before instructing a survey. There is no deposit or security for a vendor in such a sale apart from the knowledge that a buyer has paid for a survey. Abigail knew this and so rudely delayed booking a survey to reassure the vendor whatsoever
The vendor of the property naturally became very concerned that there was no survey booked, no money invested by the buyer and clearly instructed me to inform the buyer that she was worried. The vendor specifically instructed me to relay that if a survey was not booked (especially after the lease was created and signed off) that she would rent the property out and terminate the sale process. I subsequently sent the buyer a couple of very polite emails making her aware of the vendors instructions and that she risked losing the property. Abigail completely ignored this information and took unnecessary offence to my emails. She then decided not speak to me at all for the remainder of the entire sale process. She also had the ill manors to ask for the contact details for the vendor via her solicitor to cut me out of the remaining sale communication. However Surprise surprise two weeks after making personal contact with the vendor communication between the two had also completely broke down also ( I guess there’s another website for Abigail to log her complaints specific to vendor). This breakdown of communication was because the buyer so rudely would still not commit to booking a survey even when directly asked by the vendor.
To summarise on the type of applicant Abigail was, she purposefully towards the end gained full control over the sale and did not book the survey to play on the vendors fears. The vendor was lovely lady who agreed a price under the asking price and also agreed to completely pay and run the lease extension - and oh yes while we are on the subject of character yes Abigail at the very last day attempted a totally unnecessary price reduction on the flat; I guess by that time she had well and truly acquired a flavour for bullying the buyer.
This response can quickly move into the situation of simply mine against Abigail’s words scenario, so while flecking on my own performance I seek comfort in how I supported the vendor (my client) and her anxiety from being blessed with such a confrontational buyer. In the words of the vendor on the day of completion ‘Thank you Matthew for all you hard work, I am sorry I agreed to speak with Abigail before asking you. You really helped me thanks and I wont tell you what I think of this buyer’
Naturally I take any feedback of my own performance very seriously. I never intended to upset Abigail and in hindsight I regret emailing her to inform her that the property may go back on the market especially if she felt threatened. I was only relaying to her the genuine concern from the vendor that I clearly felt. If I had not painted such a clear picture to her and the vendor had then gone and rented the property out mid sale, then I am sure I would be defending myself on this site for doing just that.