Dear Mrs Dhillon,

We are disappointed to read your review of one of our staff and company, and whilst we accept this is your opinion, there are several inaccuracies we feel must be addressed.

Firstly, we are somewhat confused as to where the suggestion of a £5,000 deposit to secure the property came from? This was not an instruction given by us, nor did the vendor suggest it, so do not understand why you have said this.

The sale of this property as advised from the offset, was via an associated letting agency and we had no direct contact with their landlord-vendor with regards to the sale and it meant we were unable to offer said vendor, direct advice. We advised that as the sale had previously been subject to a complicated probate issue (not a mortgage application) and a new buyer would need to secure a mortgage offer, before the seller would undertake the conveyancing process.

You did indeed proceed on this basis, the vendor insisting nothing would happen until an offer was obtained. At the point you called us to start the conveyancing, the offer was not yet issued, so we were unable to proceed with sending out memorandums. Once the offer finally did come through, you advised us is was for less than the agreed sale amount and that this was all you could obtain. We advised we would happily put the offer forwards, but did also advise it would probably not be viewed favourably as it was for a reduced amount, and it was subsequently rejected. By nothing more than coincidence, at the same time your offer was rejected we were also told that the previous buyer's solicitor had contacted the vendor's solicitor directly and advised their client had put themselves in a position to exchange contracts, having resolved their probate issues. In view of your reduced offer and the previous buyer being a now-proceedable cash purchaser, we were informed the vendor had instructed their solicitor to proceed to exchange contracts with the other party.

Despite your offer being below the agreed price and being advised it had been rejected, you contacted us again the following day to inform us that you would now be prepared to pay in excess of the asking price - by which point the exchange had already taken place. As a result, we were left with the uncomfortable task of having to inform you that the property had indeed exchanged, which was completely out of our control, for which we can only apologise.

We were also sympathetic to the loss of your costs in this matter and we did liaise via the vendor's managing agent, as we said we would, to ask if they would be willing to reimburse you your survey fees as a gesture of goodwill. Unfortunately, the vendor was not willing to do so, despite our attempt to convince them otherwise.

We take these reviews and our reputation very seriously and we are obviously disappointed to receive such a negative review, particularly one which is not fully accurate. Sinton Andrews has been trading for over thirty five years and we pride ourselves on having happy buyers and sellers alike. We do appreciate this is consolation to you of course, on this occasion, and can only apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.