anyone heard of investment property group they say they have a buyer for my house

Running_Horse

inforeq wrote: »

they have been fairly professional with regards to the sale of my home

So by now Investment Property Group have carried out a proper survey and organised local searches? You will have filled in the usual questionnaires from their solicitor? Or is their solicitor acting for the elusive Mr Brown? No doubt they have provided the proof of funds your solicitor will have asked for? Your solicitors are talking to theirs throughout the whole process? If they pull out you are happy to pay your solicitor's costs so far? Close to exchange of contracts yet? No unexpected delays or queries?

What exactly does fairly professional mean? A little bit?

inforeq wrote: »

You can poke and prod as much as you want now, I am no longer going to be registered!

Why keep posting just to say you are no longer posting?

MobileSaver

sunshinetours wrote: »

There are some local agents in our area who operate on a fixed fee sole agency basis and one of the options is that you get a reduced fee if you pay up front. As far as I know they are not scammers,

Different case here but not everyone who operates a fee up front if necessarily a scammer as some like to portray.

Whether scammers or not, paying up front fees to an Estate Agent is a risky business and I would suggest should be avoided at all costs.

There are lots of services where paying up front for a discount is a good idea but selling a house isn't one of them. Unlike most other services you pay for, the selling price is a complete unknown and how long it will take is a complete unknown and so the EA cannot make any guarantees in return for the upfront fee.

As you rightly pointed out, one risk is that they've already been paid so why would the EA put any effort into selling your house compared to another house where they still have to earn their fee?

Another risk is that the EA goes out of business; headlines in 2008 were reporting that Estate Agencies were closing branches at a rate of 150 a week!

Even if the EA is still in business there is always the added complications of them holding your £1000+ fee when after a few months your house hasn't sold and you want to try another EA.

So I'd reiterate that you should never pay an upfront fee to anyone who claims they can sell your house.

BVB09

Just Joined to today as I thought id give you my pennys worth.This is 100% a scam.Lets just say I work in an environment that gives me access to this information.Heard that if you call them, they are no longer reachable and money has been taken from peoples bank accounts without authorisation.Bail out now.

inforeq

BVB09 wrote: »

Just Joined to today as I thought id give you my pennys worth.This is 100% a scam.Lets just say I work in an environment that gives me access to this information.Heard that if you call them, they are no longer reachable and money has been taken from peoples bank accounts without authorisation.Bail out now.

Just in case you havent read all the posts, some of us havent paid a penny out to the company. With regards to taking money from peoples bank accounts, account details must have been supplied to them at some point for them to do this and if this is correct what you are stating, then we are talking in the realms of theft, rather than a scam.

Lexigondawn

Hi, having been reading former posts and the same thing has happened to us. We were contacted 3 months ago by IPG who arranged a Mr Capello to view our property and then made an offer £1,000 less than they had valued it at. They bombarded us with calls and we decided to go through our solicitor. She looked over the documents and said they looked fine, she also spoke to Mr Capello's solicitor - they were registered with the law council, we parted with our money £1119 and now cannot get hold of anyone at IPG, surprise, surprise! We have contacted Action Fraud 0300 123 2040 and consumer Direct 08454 04 05 06, numbers which we saw on this website so thank you to that person. The more people that contact Action Fraud the better, they are more likely to be stopped in their tracks then. We also wrote a letter (get proof of postage) that gave them ten days to respond or we would take further action, I don't really hold out much hope of getting our money back but anyone going on this site will hopefully not proceed with this company.

inforeq

It does appear that many people have parted with their cash to the company.

We managed to obtain a second set of contracts/documents from IPG, stating their fees could be paid upon competion (others have actually claimed this too).

We acceted an offer from a potential buyer and things moved along rather slowly, although IPG were always polite and courteous to myself and partner.

Our second set of docs were looked over by our Solcitior and advised there was nothing out of the ordinary in them, we duly signed and returned the originals - copies lodged at the solicitors office.

We are currently at the stage whereby our paperwork has been sent to Mr Browns Solcitior (our buyer) for action, whether it be a survey (for mortgage purposes) or a completion date should it be a cash sale. We have even completed the paperwork, the one whereby you state which blinds/curtains etc are to be left. This was sent two weeks ago to Mr Browns legal office but to date nothing has changed in the slowness dept!

Surly now, should no contact be able to be made with IPG then they cannot hold us to our "contract" and the 1200 would become void? We are prepared to let this drag out for another short period of time having seen the last couple of posts. Also did think about trying to contact IPG myself but this would be unfruitful as it has gone past their input stage.


Edit - Have just tried to call IPG, recorded message saying no one available.

Further Edit - spoke to Capital Offices, IPG have never rented space from them and they are sick of returning mail addressed there. My Solcitor has spoken to Mr Browns, no instructions have been received, to date from him, and have requested our docs to be returned in view of this. Solicitor assures me that should IPG come along at a later date and request monies, then they will be politely told to go away!. We went into this with an open mind as we had nothing to loose, apart from time and finger nails with the stress.

GDB2222

inforeq wrote: »

We went into this with an open mind as we had nothing to loose, apart from time and finger nails with the stress.

Quite frankly, a lot of people told you not to waste your time on these people. I'm not surprised you are stressed, but surely half of that must be down to trying to defend the indefensible here on MSE? Anyway, you are well out of it, with your cash still safe at least.

inforeq

GDB2222 wrote: »

Quite frankly, a lot of people told you not to waste your time on these people. I'm not surprised you are stressed, but surely half of that must be down to trying to defend the indefensible here on MSE? Anyway, you are well out of it, with your cash still safe at least.

to be fair, I never defended them, they appeared to be playing the game with me. We were going along with them to see where it all went (I am sure that was documented somewhere on here).

ILW

inforeq wrote: »

to be fair, I never defended them, they appeared to be playing the game with me. We were going along with them to see where it all went (I am sure that was documented somewhere on here).

Sounds like you will probably never hear from them again.
The only fly in the ointment could be that if you do sell your place at any time in the future, you may find you are liable to pay them a fee at that point.

inforeq

ILW wrote: »

Sounds like you will probably never hear from them again.
The only fly in the ointment could be that if you do sell your place at any time in the future, you may find you are liable to pay them a fee at that point.

I have mentioned this to my Solcitor today and she thinks that if they contact us again it will be from a prison cell - the company has been in the business of taking cash from people and pretending to sell their property to various investors. They are not answering telephones and they actually do not have legit business premises. It would be interesting to see if they do come along at a later date and try to get 1200 from us!

We actually knew from quite early on in the "deal" that it was inevitable that Mr Brown was not going to complete the sale, the delays in paperwork were terrible etc. We had nothing to loose once we had signed the "contract" to pay them on completion.