Dear Corinne Thank you for providing a review of your experience with us, as both purchaser and vendor. Your happiness is our No 1 priority and I am really sorry you feel let down. I personally dealt with your complaint last September when we were dis-instructed upon a 2nd sale regrettably falling through. I acknowledged your disappointment then and had hoped my explanation provided clarity on some points that were incorrect and in my view unfairly pointed our way. It appears you are still hurting by what happened, understandably if you feel you lost out on your dream house. Buying a home you've fallen in love with, whilst selling your own property to investors (who generally are far less emotionally driven) AND also being in a chain of linked property purchases can create many opportunities for issues, most of which cause added strain to an already stressful process! Add to this 3rd parties including surveyors, mortgage advisors, mortgage lenders, overseas banks and local authorities, all working to their own timescales when co-ordinating with solicitors and conveyancing assistants and you can see why sales progression can suffer delays. Whilst delays are most definitely beyond our control as estate agents we always do our best to limit this and keep all parties communicated appropriately. I'm not sure why you feel we were to blame for the fall through or what lies were told, as there is no detail to your comment. I am surprised you felt forced" to sell with us. I remember at the time being completely transparent as to the rationale of the vendor of the house you wanted to buy. You were keen to secure it, however yours wasn't yet on the market and the vendor felt it both transactions were under one roof it would make sense. I even recall you saying that despite you not liking the feeling of being backed into a corner you would have chosen us anyway. On terminating your contract with the required 14 day notice, I offered a simple solution for you to avoid selling to anyone we had introduced the property to during our period of instruction and thereby ensuring you did not unwittingly incur our fee. I did this because your request to be provided with the names and contact information of all leads we had contacted about your property would have been in breach of data protection. The 6 month clause you mention is standard practice in all agency contracts to prevent sellers from avoiding payment of a legitimately earned fee. It didn't mean you couldn't sell with another agent. It meant you couldn't sell with another agent to someone who we had already had involvement with – and not expect to pay us a share of the remuneration. I hope my response shows we do care about your impression of us and if I have managed to restore any faith in my company, then I would be more than happy to market your property again and help you move onto an even better dream home than you imagined possible.

Thank you for your personal response Allison. We completely agree that delays were of course not your fault. Yet, maybe rather than allow our buyer nearly a year to come up with a mortgage, you could have helped us find a new buyer who was able to afford our property? In regards to the untruths told to us, we discussed our concerns about the outrageous delay with your representative (let's call him M), on a number of occasions. We were told one particular time that a drive by survey" had been completed on the property, the buyers had their mortgage in place, and there would be no further delays. This was untrue! A survey had not been completed at all and they did not have a mortgage. In regards to being almost forced to chose you as our agent, I explained to you at the time that I would have chosen you but then felt backed into a corner when you said we had to choose your agency or you would be unable to sell that particular property to us. This made me change my opinion quite quickly. However, we went ahead as we loved the property. Of course we are still hurt by the awful experience. We lost our ideal home, had to take our property off the market for 6 months (as we couldn't be sure who you had recommended the property to), lost a lot of money in fees and surveys etc, my health in particular suffered as a result of the stress, and to top it off, the poor woman who's house we were buying also lost her dream home in the process. It's a real pity that your initial response to our complaint wasn't as polite as this one. It was quite abrupt without any form of apology. Saying that, I don't think an apology would ever put right the traumatic experience we had trying to sell our house through your company.