Tesco suspends private seller service

Mutton_Geoff

Dear User

I am writing to let you know that unfortunately Tesco Property Market is suspending its private seller service.

Tesco Property Market has been enormously popular, offering value and choice to our customers, however, the high profile launch of our service raised questions about the status of on-line private sale businesses under the 1979 Estate Agency Act, which was implemented well before the emergence of the internet.

Having consulted the Office of Fair Trading on the restrictions of the act we now understand that Tesco Property Market is considered an Estate Agent under the regulations. We are now reviewing our business with a view to launching a new and exciting on-line estate agency service. As we can't be both an on-line estate agent and a private seller site, we reluctantly have to suspend the private seller service launched earlier in the year.

Becoming an Estate Agent will enable us to offer our customers personal advice on the sale of their home and give them access to the leading property portal websites, which accept listings from estate agents but not from private sellers.

The online communication tool is no longer available. If you would like to continue to negotiate with one of our sellers, please email [EMAIL="support@tescopropertymarket.com"]support@tescopropertymarket.com[/EMAIL] the following message:

I wish to continue to negotiate with the owner of one of the properties advertised and give Tesco Property Market my consent to pass on my email address to them. The Property I am interested in is: [please insert as much information about the property as you can]
Property ID
Address
Postcode
Asking Price
No. of bedrooms

Please accept our sincerest apologies for any inconvenience this will cause.

If you have any further questions please call us on 0845 603 8162 (9am to 5pm Monday to Friday) or email us on [EMAIL="support@tescopropertymarket.com"]support@tescopropertymarket.com[/EMAIL].

Yours sincerely,

Mark Davis
Managing Director

BrixMorta

I can't say I'm suprised. The question is, are they really thinking about an online EA option or are they just saying this to save face?

courtjester

I agree - this looks like a commercial decision taken following the mess they made of introducing their property service and hanging the blame on the convenient hook of the 'OFT' considering whether their service constitutes agency or not. In the long run, Tesco are about making profits and they presumably see that their initial foray into property is not going to work in the way they wanted it to, so are changing direction.

Interesting that this announcement should coincide with the FISH4 database link up being withdrawn...

Tesco clearly want to move on to an agency model to give them the same access to sites like Rightmove, Findaproperty etc that "online estate agents" currently enjoy - the problem is that they have upset so many of these services (through arrogance and misleading the likes of FISH4 as to what they were up to) that they have effectively burnt most of these bridges, so it will be interesting to see how many of the main portals offer them any relationship - after all the fuss that agents made about their introduction, you can be sure that most portals will not want to incur the wrath of their members again.

Assuming that Rightmove intend to resist a further relationship with Tesco, it will also be interesting to see how they turn Tesco down in their new guise of 'proper' estate agents without themselves coming under the microscope from the Competition Commission - as this would be unlawful discrimination.

Rightmove have for some time been considering whether to admit 'online-only agents' at all and it may be that this will force their hand to change their terms & conditions (again) to exclude all the Housenetworks, Brightsales etc.... that have built their castles on the Rightmove platform, which could well now turn to sand.