Park & Bailey should be renamed 'Shark & Bailey'! We were weeks away from exchanging on a house listed with this agent, only to receive a phone call to tell us that a new offer had been accepted by the vendor THREE months after ours had been agreed! We know that gazumping is legal and a reality, but I have not spoken to ONE other agent that has allowed this to happen SO far down the progress of the sale. It is simply unethical and disgustingly bad practice by this agent and there is a reason why this is actually illegal in Scotland. There should be safeguards put in place in England to protect buyers from snakes like Park & Bailey in the industry. I was shut down immediately by other agents during my house search if the property was under offer, but Park & Bailey clearly continued to entertain other offers after a sale was 'agreed' to earn an extra buck! Their only response was that it is their 'obligation' to pass on offers to their vendor, but how was an offer able to get through in the first place? I would love to see the transcript of this exchange, as I am confident it was encouraged and collusion. I can't actually believe how they can still be trading if this is the way they choose to do business. As for the vendor they are equally as sickening, choosing a couple of thousand pounds over the unwritten code of conduct that I thought we all abided by as humans. We have not only lost thousands of pounds, time and energy but will now lose our own buyer and the ability to find a new house and move before the stamp duty deadline. This agent and the vendor has cost us our future. The experience from start to finish was also appalling, from trying to get a viewing of the property (despite meeting all criteria) right through to trying to agree on a completion date with the vendor through the agent. The signs were there from the beginning that we were part of a trap! The whole process was purposely pro-longed by the agent and the vendor for this new bidder to come along and snatch the property up from beneath us after we had spent thousands on fees! We were perfectly capable of completing before Xmas 2020, but were told that the vendor refused to vacate the property until the end of Feb (6 months after an offer was agreed!) We bent over backwards to accommodate the vendor and the agent's conditions to the point we almost lost our own buyer! We were about to vacate our own property and rent/store our belongings to satisfy our buyers at the expense of Park & Bailey and the vendor; and If we had made that decision, we would be homeless today! Please please DO NOT TRUST this estate agent if you are a buyer (or a seller)! I am confident that this would not have been the outcome with any other agent and that comes from a LOT of personal experience within the industry, having come from a family of property developers that have bought and sold houses all their lives. This year has been hard enough without having to deal with an untrustworthy, shark-like, unethical estate agent. If you are 'progressing' a sale with this agent at the moment, PLEASE watch your back!