Strike

I hope you will have the patience to read my review, it is rather long-winded but I think it is very important to warn people of the problems with House Simple's customer service and their misleading terms by describing exactly what happened to me. Initially, leading up to the photographs being taken, House Simple were fine – they quickly emailed and telephoned me to confirm my instructions, answered politely and efficiently some queries , and organised a photographer on the day that I wanted. The photographer turned up on time and was very efficient and helpful in making sure the rooms were laid out to best effect for the photos, which he showed to us on his camera. They were excellent. He also prepared the floorplan, which contains the room measurements. However, after House Simple downloaded the photographs on to my dashboard, which was done the day after the photographer's visit, things started to go downhill. The floorplan had not materialised by Monday, so I phoned them and was told someone would chase it up, it should only take a couple of days to download the floorplans on to my dashboard. Nothing happened by Thursday, I received no communication as to progress from House Simple, so I rang again, to be told once again they would chase it and it should be done that day. Again nothing happened, so I rang on Friday and was told Barry would ring me back. No-one rang. In frustration, I rang the photographer directly and he told me he had passed the floorplans to House Simple at the same time as the photos, and kindly offered to chase them himself. He emailed me to say he had chased them and had been assured that the floorplans would be downloaded without fail" on Monday. I rang House Simple on the Saturday to say that I had contacted the photographer and asked for my account manager, Richard Lee – I was told he was not in that day but would be in on Sunday and would ring me. I said I had been promised phone calls, would he definitely ring me first thing on Sunday, and they said he would. Well guess what, no phone call from Richard on the Sunday. You will not be surprised to hear that no floor plans were downloaded on the Monday. I then rang again on Tuesday and spoke to Barry, who said he would chase it up, he couldn't understand what had happened. Needless to say, I heard nothing more from House Simple. On Friday (now 2 weeks after the photographer's visit) I rang again, spoke to Barry, reminded him he was going to chase up the floorplans, and he said he was going to download them that minute! He said the first lot of floorplans were no good and he had to ask for further copies from the photographer – well the ones the photographer had sent me a week earlier were exactly the same as the ones Barry downloaded, yes they actually were downloaded a few minutes after my phone call. So why weren't they downloaded much earlier? I gave up trying to get to the bottom of it but am generally disgusted at the level of customer service, the fact there was no apology and the fact that it was always me who had to ring House Simple, they never once rang me. With that sort of customer service, I decided not to trust them with my sale and could not possibly recommend them. On another note, I found their website most misleading. It looks as though the rate that is shown on the first page of their site is the one the customer pays, without any additional obligations. Below it says there is a discount for using their conveyancer/mortgage broker – but in fact there is no discount on the prices stated, and if the customer clicks on the yes" circle next to the questions asking if they want to use your conveyancer/broker, it changes to no" and the prices go up! I took the fact that the box says Yes to mean that if I click on it, I am saying yes, I do want to use your conveyancer/broker, so at first I ignored that completely. Although not an outright lie, I consider that sort of layout and wording to be highly deceitful. Now for their Free Trial Period. You must check the Selling Terms, as these terms state (as at 13 April 2016) Negotiation of offers and progression of a sale that arises from the free Trial Period will be subject to the Success Fee of £1295 which will be payable on the Completion Date." So someone who thought they were paying the fixed fee of £395 (as at 13 April 2016) at a later date and who didn't read the terms carefully will discover they actually have a fee of £1295 to pay, if a sale results from an enquiry in the free trial period. This £1295 fee should either be clearly stated elsewhere on the site where free trial period is mentioned, or preferably not put in at all – far from being a free" trial period, the customer could be left with a much higher bill than expected, so it rather makes a mockery of the term free trial period". So you will not be surprised to learn that I would never, ever recommend House Simple. I sold very quickly in the end through *another agent* and was extremely impressed with their service *.