Good Afternoon,
I hope you're well.
I wanted to get in touch as the Sales Manager who contacted you to discuss this situation after you requested a manager contact you. I have found the email I sent to you at 13.47 on Tuesday 18th June. Attached to this email was the complaints procedure and the following message: 'Good Afternoon, I have received an email through from you regarding making a complaint. Please see the attached complaints procedure. I’m sorry to hear that you wish to complain in this instance and would love an opportunity to discuss this with you should you wish to ask any question or I can assist in anyway. Kind Regards'
I received no reply to this email or any telephone calls to discuss further. Our Branch Partner Patrick also left a message to speak with you the following day as he was out of the office on Tuesday.
The full breakdown of the situation was actually as follows:
Offer received from your son on Friday 14th June. My colleague Elle did indeed explain that ideally we would need to arrange a viewing as we would actually be putting out client at risk should we recommend accepting an offer from somebody who has not viewed a property with us. This is unfortunately, not due to anything you did and I can only apologise if you took this personally, however, we have in the very distant past had people offer on a property without viewing, then substantially reduce their offer far down the line and/or close to exchange because they then find the time to view and feel they are paying too much. Attempting to reduce an offer immediately prior to exchange is more commonly known as gazundering. You/your son refused to arrange a viewing and we clearly explained that we would discuss it with the vendor but that there was other interest in the property. Ultimately, it is their property and their prerogative to do as they wish.
On this same day, we had had a viewing with another party who was also in a position to purchase cash. The seller, our client, made the decision to accept this offer from this party some two days later after the necessary and due diligent checks had been made.
According to our system we received a written message from your son at 18.03pm on Sunday the 16th June. At this point the sellers were still making their decision on how they wished to proceed with both offers. However, the office was closed on this day and a call was made by my colleague Narinder when she picked up your query on Monday 17th June at 10.16am to your son to discuss further. At this point the seller had made their decision to accept the offer they wished to and at this point your son was informed. The seller had instructed us that they didn’t wish to enter into any further negotiations with yourself/your son as you/he hadn’t viewed the property.
The assumption by yourselves to state that we have misrepresented the offer in anyway is completely unfounded and we were actually attempting to assist you by explaining to both yourself and your son that you would need to view otherwise it was unlikely the sellers would even consider the offer. Our system sends automated text/email messages when a viewing is confirmed so they would have been fully aware that a viewing wasn’t booked let alone attended. They are intelligent and grounded individuals who are capable of making their own decisions. I would like to reiterate, it was categorically their decision to decline your sons offer and accept the other offer at that point. According to the Estate Agency Act we have to act in our clients best interests and follow their instructions.
Your statement relating to Section 9 of the ‘The Property Ombudsman Code of Practice’ is actually in relation to us disclosing what services a prospective customer may be using from our company and not discriminating against one persons offer if they don’t want to use our services or favouring another offer because they are. This is against the law and in no way how Morris Dibben to choose to operate.
We did indeed give your son the opportunity to increase should he wish to once we had informed him of our clients instructions to reject his offer as goodwill. The legal requirement is that any offer be put forward in good time. He declined this opportunity and subsequently we received a request for contact details of the manager to make a formal complaint.
I hope this helps to confirm the situation and am more than happy to discuss further should you wish to give me a call.
Assuring you of our best intentions at all times.
Kind Regards
Rachael Fielden
Sales Manager, Morris Dibben, Southampton