We instructed Acorn to market our flat in June. Laura was very helpful to complete the advert promptly, which looked very professional. We were informed that Acorn already had several potential buyers ready to view the flat, so were very hopeful. We timed the sale of the flat with a holiday we had booked, to enable the estate agents complete access at any time of the day. However, in the 3 weeks we were away, we had minimal communication from them, and it transpired we only had approximately 4 viewings. We were very disappointed, but understood that this could just be a slow period. Over the next couple of months, we had several viewings, but no offers. We were then asked to drop the price by £15k which we agreed to as we were informed the 'market was changing'. We then received our first offer which was a further £25k lower than our reduced price. We politely declined, but were pressured by Andrew and the team to accept quickly. We were reluctant to accept, as we had reliably been informed of a suitable price from several other agents. Instead, my wife was regularly pressured and backed into a corner, to the point that I asked for all communication to come through myself. The buyer eventually raised his offer to £5k lower than our reduced price, as he was supposedly a 'hot buyer' ready to move asap with no complications. Both Ricky and Andrew blatantly encouraged us to just accept the offer, and begin our own search for an onward purchase, with the belief that we could just pull out at any time if another buyer came with a better offer. Both my wife and I were astonished at the suggestion, and I promptly rejected the idea on professional and moral grounds. I was concerned that the buyer would be paying for searches and surveys under false pretences. It was clear that Acorn wished to string us along as their 3 month instruction was coming to an end and they had only found one buyer after 20 viewings. We regularly consulted our mortgage broker to ensure this offer could facilitate our next purchase, and we accepted after careful consideration. It was at this point that we began searching for our onward purchase, and were then informed that our buyer needed to remortgage his property. I questioned this, as we were led to believe his position was completely different. Instead, we were informed there is nothing to worry about, and it would be sorted in a weeks' time. We were understandably concerned and chased this up. Approximately a week later, Jack had confirmed that the remortgage was complete with no issues, and the buyer was patiently waiting for us to find our purchase. We called Acorn at least once weekly to ensure that the buyer was happy and all relevant people were kept informed of our progress. We eventually found our dream house, and promptly informed Acorn. This was on the basis that our buyer was ready to move, and we could therefore make a quick purchase too. Again, several other members of the Acorn team confirmed that the buyer's remortgage was complete and he had moved into his parent's property, ready and waiting for us. After completing our survey, and some searches and instructing our solicitors, things had progressed quite far. Suddenly, completely out of the blue, Jack then calls us to say there had been problems with our buyers remortgage and he was going to be a further £60k short of funds. We were understandably shocked and confused as we were regularly informed by most of the Acorn team that the remortgage was sorted months ago. Unfortunately, the buyer could not find another mortgage lender to facilitate the purchase of our flat so had to pull out. In turn, this meant that we lost our dream house and our vendors subsequent purchase was in jeopardy. We asked Jack to visit us rather than give excuses over the phone. He did, which we very much appreciated. However, it transpired that Acorn's financial advisor had massively overvalued the buyer's property, and they intentionally told him not to remortgage until we had found our onward purchase. The blatant lies, and guesswork from Acorn ultimately risked everyone's property purchases, which is unforgivable. They were very reluctant to accept any responsibility or give any apologies. The underhand practices of stringing people along with poor communication and lies should probably have been obvious to us when Ricky himself suggested accepting the offer with the intention of pulling out further down the line, but we naively trusted them. Jack repeatedly assured us for several weeks that there were no issues with the buyer. All we asked for was honesty and some integrity. I tried to inform Jack that the loss of our dream house has much wider implications, such as starting a new family, and planning to visit relatives abroad as well as changing careers. All these were planned on the basis that we would move early next year, but we are now in limbo, desperately trying to sell in possibly the worst season for property just before Christmas. Disappointingly, whilst Jack clearly tried to excuse himself from any wrongdoing, he was never supported or backed by Ricky. We heard or saw nothing from Ricky which is surprising from a branch manager when a complaint is raised.