purple brick

harshitguptaiitr

When I was looking for a house to purchase, I saw a couple of properties on rightmove where estate agent was Purplebricks.

I had a very poor experience in arranging a viewing via Purplebricks that I had to tell the owner that she could get more viewings and a quicker sale if she removed Purplebricks from the equation.

I didn't go for that house as it was not suited to my taste. Eventually I saw on rightmove that property being advertised by a high street estate agent.

ellectrastar

I posted another thread asking which online agent came out the best as really want to save some pennies when it comes to selling my property. Someone I know used PB and recommended it but I am feeling a little apprehensive.

I had a valuation, saw a local property expert. Very nice, explained options. Use their conveyancing and pay later or use our own solicitors and pay now. 24/7 access to portal. Can manage our own bookings. Get feedback. Optional extra for them to conduct viewings. Their fee is a one off fee until we sell. Can take it off market and put back on and no extra charge. I expressed concerns with using their conveyancing after a bad experience doing this before, but was told it is easier as they all work together for the same interest, and that they don't use any companies that have bad reports about them as it reflects poorly on PB.

So, this was followed up by a couple of emails prompting me to instruct them. Wasn't ready. Got quote to sell only with their conveyancing billed as "Ezie Conveyancing Services". Just for reference as wasn't proceeding at that time.

A couple of months later I emailed asking if they could get me a quote for sale and purchase. No reply. Emailed again a couple of weeks later and was told trouble with emails their end and quote sent. This time by "Advanced Conveyancing".

Pretty much ready to go now so emailed again with a query over which option. No answer again. Rang and no reply. Received a text later with the answer.

Decided to go over the solictors quotes I had got before (PB's plus three locals) and this is when I started getting wary. The quote they gave has a final fee but then beneath this there are at least three other fees (id checks for money laudering at £12.50+VAT per person, £39+VAT for electronic transfers (x2), and then in the small print some "archive fee" of £68+VAT. In addition to their flat fee they also wanted to charge £120+VAT for sale and another one for purchase as a "mortgage fee" for dealing with any existing and/or new mortgage. Finally there was this paragraph:

"Referral fee. The Introducer who has provided this quotation has suggested that you use a particular Lawyer for your
conveyancing. The Introducer is required to advise you that it has a financial arrangement with the Lawyer and that the Lawyer
will pay a referral fee to the introducer and an administration fee to the panel manager, these total £845.70 + VAT. The Lawyer
is totally independent from the Introducer and the Lawyer will act only on your instructions and always in your best interests.
The Lawyer will provide you with impartial, independent advice when providing this service and you are able to raise any
questions with them about any aspect of your case."

So needless to say I had more questions! I wanted to know that the mortgage fee would be removed should we not have a mortgage or need a new one; and what that last paragraph actually meant. The lawyer pays the referrer (PB?) £845.70+VAT. I'm paying PB £849. So what - the lawyer's paying PB for the privilege to do my conveyancing pro bono?? It may be me, and if someone understands it please explain it because I'm confused!!

Emailed Monday - no reply. No acknowledgement even. I haven't instructed them (was so close, and to using their conveyancing which I definitely won't be now as more than my local solicitor even minus the mortgage fee charges) and now thinking do I want to? They know I'm ready to go now, I'd've thought they would've been keen to get the money off me but I guess not. And now I've read all these other posts I don't know what to do...

sl_jones

I am currently selling my Flat with Purplebricks, well i say "selling" it's more like pay a guy to come around take bad images on your property and then put that on the internet for you.

I am fighting with them at the very moment, "property expect" was fine with me but was a bit rude to my husband when he come and took photos. He then took really bad photos which i then replaced with my own photos and then put them up for approval, which the property expert then didn't put up my photos but put up a mixture of both. :mad:

Should have stopped it there really.

It's now been on the market for 24 days, no viewings, no messages not interest. I raised a complaint with them as i wasn't told about a cooling off period even though i asked twice, both to the property expert and the customer service person on the phone. AND the worst bit is there is no way of getting your money back!

There Terms and Conditions are as follows:

Should you wish to cancel or withdraw any Products and Services you may do so at any time. However, under no circumstances will any full or part credit be made in respect of Advertised Rates. You can withdraw your advert at any time by clicking on the ‘remove advert’ icon on your property page in the Online Platform. In certain circumstances you may be able to re-list the property within a designated period after withdrawal. Details will be made available at the time of seeking to withdraw/relist your Advert.

You are entitled to a 14 day cooling off period from the moment you instruct Purplebricks, up until the time you approve your advert to go live. At this point it will be deemed that we have provided the marketing service and you will no longer be entitled to a refund of the marketing fee.

I'm so annoyed :mad::mad::mad::mad: It took a flat in the road opposite to us 10 days to sell, AND it's not just me, other purple bricks properties have been on the market months and are not selling. We viewed a house near one of the best school's in the area (she was literally next door) and she told me she had 4 viewings in just over a month. Yet the house in the road before hers was for sale, which was a Terrance house and slightly small was up for 20k more then hers and had 14 viewings in two weeks.

Something seriously need to be done, they are in my eyes falsely advertising themselves by saying they are "proper estate agents" as they don't do anything that Estate agents offer, there's no online database that they email to, not pushing of properties, they don't even let you know when properties come up in the area that you might be interested in.

I have made a formal complaint and the area manager rung me, i am waiting to see what happens next.

NelliePie

The house I bought (completed three weeks ago) was sold through purple bricks. In the 11 weeks from offer to completion the seller put in three formal complaints and one to the legal ombudsman. We also put a complaint in as on acceptance of our offer the post sales team handed our details out to their conveyancers and a surveyors they work with WITHOUT our permission as we got a hell of a lot of calls and emails from them even though we insisted we wouldn't be using their services, they just wouldn't take no for an answer. We also felt a lot of pressure from the estate agent to use their conveyancing team as ''it would all be completed quicker as your sellers are using them too''. We picked our own solicitors and are infinitely grateful we did. Following completion I thought we'd be done with their nonsense however only in the past few days I've had one person peering through the kitchen windows and someone approach me on my drive as the property was still being advertised (as Sold STC) and wondered what the situation was/if they could make an offer. After politely telling them that the sale had completed I called purplebricks to ask if they could take the advert down and remove their 'for sale' board and I got an out-right flat refusal. After being batted around between people for a while (and more refusals) I eventually spoke with someone who said they wouldn't take it down as they hadn't had confirmation of completion (from their own conveyancing team), even though we completed three weeks ago!! After some choice words it was finally taken down yesterday and the board should be removed this week.

As a buyer, I'd never buy a house that was advertised through purple bricks again. Nor would I sell through them

RancidM

We initially instructed a local EA to sell our house.
The EA seemed nice enough, they came and took the photos and so forth.

They were the sole agents at a rate of 1.25%

we had several viewings and some low offers, and then the EA sent around a developer to view the property.

the developer make a offer £10k below the asking price.
the EA encouraged us to accept (which we did)
the developer than had a valuation from his lender (who appears to be a specialist lender for developers) and he wanted a further £15k off the price of the house, the EA strongly encouraged us to lower our price again (we refused)
the buyer than had a damp and timber survey performed by a company who provided damp proofing services and they produced a quote of £10k plus work.
Again our EA suggested we drop the price (we refused)

the buyer then wasted a further couple of months of our time with me chasing for updates before he pulled out of the sale.

we did all viewing ourselves apart from one.
the EA didn't seem to grasp us as customers at all.
the communication was very poor.
Do I think they did anything to warrant the 5k plus they were going to take in commission.... no not at all.

I cant say this was indicative of other EA's as I have never dealt with them. but its the only experience of a local EA that I have.

We have now resisted our house with PB.
Our local chap seems keen as mustard, he spent a lot longer with us taking photos and suggesting on what to remove and de-clutter.
I think the pictures and floor plans are far better than the local EA produced.

the house went live yesterday morning.
we had a viewing last night...
viewings planned for tomorrow and Sunday.
in each case I got the chance to message the buyer in advance to check what their situation was and if I deemed them to be a committed buyer.

We had already instructed our own solicitors and this didn't seem to be an issue for our PB chap.
We paid in full in advance and this didn't deter our PB chap at all.

personally I like the direct interaction with the buyers.

This is our first house sale and our second dealing with an EA.
So while my experience is very limited in this area..
i far more prefer dealing with PB than i do with the previous EA.

sl_jones

RancidM wrote: »

This is our first house sale and our second dealing with an EA.
So while my experience is very limited in this area..
i far more prefer dealing with PB than i do with the previous EA.

Let us know when you sell as PB either works or doesn't. Mostly it doesn't

RancidM

sl_jones wrote: »

Let us know when you sell as PB either works or doesn't. Mostly it doesn't

House sold within 2 weeks of going up with PB.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-60891583.html

We had a fair few offers and several offers.

I do appreciate that its down to who your local PB chap is and ours was excellent. His communication was very swift and he was very attentive.

I personally liked the direct communication with the buyer

I'm trying to arrange a survey for the property we are buying and to be frank the vendors high street EA are a waste of time.

gatita

I was in exactly the same position as you last week, on the brink of signing up with them. Have to say the agent I saw was exceedingly nice and had good knowledge of the area.
I asked for the exact terms and conditions, like you I was totally befuddled with the jargon!!
I declined to sign up, and after watching Watchdog last night, thank goodness I did!

staggered

I'd avoid at all costs. I viewed a house through Purplebricks and had my offer accepted. They made it VERY difficult to go ahead without using their solicitors and made no attempt to resolve problems. The purchase fell through, they couldn't care less, they already had their commission. Really, just avoid them.

Fiesto88

Currently waiting for exchange on a property bought through Purplebricks. The process thus far has been simple, though I think it helped a lot that our vendors chose direct contact rather than making negotiations go via the PB rep.

Unfortunately, they are using the linked conveyancing service which I've read nothing but terrible things about. No problems to report so far on that front although we do seem to have been waiting a while for further documents and information our solicitor asked them for. With any luck, it shouldn't cause too much of an issue as we can contact the vendor if things stall.