Purple Bricks Complaint... anyone else had success?

eddddy

Normally, you would only win in court if you could show that you suffered a financial loss as a result of PB's actions.

But PB are a member of the Property Ombudsman Scheme, so you could try a complaint to them - they are 'friendlier to the consumer' than the courts are.


The Ombudsman can order an estate agent to pay you compensation...

Awards will be made if we are persuaded that the complainant has suffered:

•  Actual, proven financial loss as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the agent
•  And/or avoidable aggravation, distress and inconvenience.

Link: https://www.tpos.co.uk/outcome-of-the-complaint

So you could argue that PB caused you 'avoidable aggravation, distress and inconvenience'.  The Ombudsman usually awards about £250 for this - but I guess they might award more in an extreme case.


More info: https://www.tpos.co.uk/consumers/how-to-make-a-complaint

Charlotte1404

googler said:

Again, it seems like the sum total of your damages is to be refunded for the extra fee you paid for the viewing service.

How much was that?

This was £300.

RajaStyle

Charlotte1404 said:

To provide a little more clarification:

They lost the keys to my property. My LPE left the company and they didn't tell me who was taking over. It had been transferred to someone else in the company and said person hadn't been made aware. 
When viewings started back up again, they had to send people away because they told me they had located the keys, but turns out they went to the viewing with the wrong keys. I was assured they would rearrange these viewings, but whenever I have chased this, no-one will give me an answer.

The second LPE to be assigned to my case also left the company, and no-one was assigned to the case for a month. In that time, someone requested a viewing. I could not attend as I have already moved out of the area, and (and this is a key part of my complaint) I had agreed to pay the extra fee for the accompanied viewing service. When I tried to reach someone at PB, they said my case was due to be assigned to someone soon, and they would pick up the viewing. To this day I never heard back from this prospective viewer, thereby losing a potential buyer.

Shocking service, I wouldn't be happy and they have lost you countless potential buyers.  Furthermore your property has maybe indirectly made to look not as desirable due to the fact its been on the market so long.  People trend to be more motivated at looking at newish listed properties and think might be something wrong if it's there a while.. My opinion from what I've seen and heard.