We were let down by Marsh&Parsons in Barnes. We put our house on the market and everything was great until we had two buyers bidding for our house. Buyer A was a mum without a chain who was desperate to move to Barnes to be close to a local school, hence hugely motivated and a very reliable buyer. Buyer B was a young couple who just wanted to move into a house from their flat so not massively motivated and with a chain. Barnes branch manager Paul strongly advised against buyer A and for buyer B. We kept hearing him mention his 20 years of experience and were eventually convinced to stick to buyer B partly due to our integrity, as we already accepted an offer from them. Buyer B showed many disturbing signs of not being committed to sale demanding extra documents and looking for flaws. Every time we expressed our doubts about buyer’s B commitment, Paul he yet again convinced us that the buyer B was the right choice. Unsurprisingly buyer B pulled out of the sale after 2 torturous months following Hammersmith Bridge closure to pedestrians. I reached out to buyer A, who was very reluctant to go back to Barnes’ March&Parsons as she felt she was discriminated against by Paul, so bringing her back on board took some convincing and a £20,000 price reduction. During the process I learnt a few ugly details about her communication with Paul. I cannot know for certain what Paul’s motivation was when he advised against buyer A. The buyer A herself thought he saw the opportunity to satisfy a very demanding buyer (buyer B) and seeing buyer’s A motivation he knew any sale would be straightforward. I felt there was a hint of prejudice or possibly racism. Whatever the reason, when I called Paul to speak about the fact that buyer B pulled out, I did not even hear an apology. I asked for a reduction in agency’s fees as we lost at least £20,000 on this sale (buyer A did offer £25,000 extra, which Paul denied) and his response was a definite ‘no’. I guess I would not be writing this if he at least apologised for his very costly advise.