I was asked my Clive and David (the seller, a very good friend of Clives') to first provide evidence that I was a suitable person for the neighborhood and my girlfriend put together a document about us for David to review. We also had to attend an interview with Clive and David before our offer would be accepted to make sure we were a good fit, which itself is discriminatory but that is just the beginning. Our offer was finally accepted £15k over the asking price to make sure we secured the property we really wanted, in the first week of December 2013 and Clive / David assured us it would be complete by Feb. Feb came, and went and I rang Clive every other week to chase an update as at no point in the process did anyone from Joules ever take the time to call us or provide any information. Every single time I was advised a few more weeks, "any day now", "not long now", "David's secured a property and we're just having the last few boxes ticked"... This went on for 7 months! It was only when I had to extend my mortgage offer which runs out on 1st July that I asked for a firm date as my lender, understandably, would not extend for an indefinite amount of time. Clive assured me that 14 days should cover it. I found out a day later via Davids solicitor (via mine) that there was no way that the sale would even be complete by August let alone any time in July, and David and Colin had known this for a number of months. I confronted Joules but was advised by his receptionist he was out of the office, the receptionist however, said he's spoken to his wife about it and referred to 'him' throughout the call. I put my concerns into an email advising that if I didn't have a date for completion before my mortgage offer ran out I would withdraw my offer. Clive's response was to advise me that he was not happy with my email and it was a silly thing to do (to complain) as he was now putting the house back on the market. I am taking my complaint to the ombudsman as I have been deliberately misled for almost 8 months. This man is a conman and a liar.