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Estate agents being lazy? What would you do?

Hello we have our flat up for sale and its probably been up for about a month and a half. We hav only had 3 viewings and all of them have an excuse not to buy! We was hoping for a lot more by now. Anyway when the estate agent came round and took the photos, there was a pretty rubbish photo of the garden so he came round last Friday when we was out, with our spare key, to take a photo. I have checked every day on rightmove since and the new photo isn't on there. It was taken a week ago today.

I emailed the estate agents Monday and she said it should be on there by 4pm that afternoon. Well it wasn't. So I emailed Tuesday morning and got no reply. So I emailed another email address I had for them, same again, no reply. On Wednesday my partner phoned them and said the photo is still not on there and nobody replied to my emails. He said there was only two people in as the other two are out taking photos Etc. so the excuse was they are so busy. He said the photo is up to rightmove and its their problem etc. well Thursday it still wasn't on there so I emailed them again and said its been almost a week now. The lady rang my partner and kept apologising And said she don't know what has happened with the photo, they can't find it anywhere, they will have to come and take a new one today. She was waiting for the guy who took the photo to come back and she will ask him. I am so fed up as its been a whole week and all we wanted was a photo put online! The others Are on there but we need a better garden one. We are paying for the highest package to sell our flat and I feel they keep letting us down etc, but they are so friendly that I don't want to embarrass myself and send a horrible email!, what would you do? Thank you
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Comments

  • notanewuser
    notanewuser Posts: 8,499 Forumite
    How soon can you fire them?
    Trying to be a man is a waste of a woman
  • They sound very much like the agents we have. We paid for the premium listing too, which was rubbish, they'd made mistakes etc and took ages to change them. They never informed me of viewings they had, I got more information about those from my tenants in the property. They never replied to my emails either despite several complaints. In the end I complained to head office who said that I could have £250 off their commission when they sell it. As it turned out another branch of the same EA sold the property, not the usesless articles I'd put it on the market with.
    Mortgage to clear asap! - [STRIKE]£148,874.38 [/STRIKE]as at 1 May 2013
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  • Dan-Dan
    Dan-Dan Posts: 5,272 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    I find that with ours , they are good , as in approachable , seem very hard working , but dont do things quite as quickly as we would like , as in replacment pictures etc , they suggested new photos with a sunny day etc , 10 days after they suggested it and me chasing , and them keep forgetting their camera , i took them myself and took them down on my memory stick!
    Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
  • Fire_Fox
    Fire_Fox Posts: 26,026 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    They probably never came round to take the photo in the first place. You don't want to be tough because they are friendly? Would you not report a rapist or murderer to the police if they were super polite?? Grow some balls and write a letter of complaint. Sorry but I hate threads where people want help but then basically dismiss the obvious solution in the OP.
    Declutterbug-in-progress.⭐️⭐️⭐️ ⭐️⭐️
  • Dan-Dan
    Dan-Dan Posts: 5,272 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    I think its a fine line between wether an Estate Agent is slow and unresponsive and wethere a vendor is too impatient
    I think there is a middle ground somewhere
    Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
  • FeistyFidget
    FeistyFidget Posts: 1,368 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Combo Breaker
    I think that the OP may have been wondering if this was a. standard estate agent behaviour and b. acceptable terms for a complaint.

    I understand your hesitancy to complain, you will after all have to speak to someone direct after you hit the send button. Try to keep the email factual, log times and expected outcomes. End it with why you personally believe this isn't acceptable (length of time, poor customer service skills etc). See how they respond to this before you set the big guns blazing.

    If no joy, then you knuckle down and threaten to enlist a new estate agent - to be honest, if it gets to this stage you would be better off getting out of the contract (if in one) with them and finding a new one - you don't have to put up with crap services, but you do need to keep them on side to try and get the maximum asking price for your property - pushing for an extra few thousand is just pointless work for them, whereas it will obviously make a big difference to you.
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  • Mrs_ted
    Mrs_ted Posts: 54 Forumite
    Fire them and find another estate agent. Time wasters.
  • Thrugelmir
    Thrugelmir Posts: 89,546 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Jadex91 wrote: »
    Hello we have our flat up for sale and its probably been up for about a month and a half. We hav only had 3 viewings and all of them have an excuse not to buy!

    That's the nature of the property market. People are spending thousands of £'s. So will want to make the right decision.

    Take a look on Rightmove and see what the opposition is like on your area.
  • jadex91
    jadex91 Posts: 202 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Thank you everyone, I have emailed rightmove on twitter and they are saying that estate agents have something called rightmove plus and it takes from 10 minutes to 24 hours to upload photos, this was now 1 week and 3 days ago! I'm quite fuming to be honest. Estate agents told us rightmove have a problem with their system and that's why it's not gone on. But they said they aren't aware of any problems! I am annoyed, I am going to take a new photo myself and send it to them via email. They will probably not reply!! What to do now!
  • Errata
    Errata Posts: 38,230 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    edited 29 April 2013 am30 11:55AM
    What to do? Stop emailing, stop phoning, and twiddling about on twitter. You need to be in their office as a matter of great urgency having a very robust conversation with them. In other words, you need to put the fear of god into them.
    .................:)....I'm smiling because I have no idea what's going on ...:)
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