Thank you for your review. I totally understand that it can be upsetting when you miss out on a property, especially with so few coming to the market at the moment and demand being high.
In regards to your comments I have investigated the matter and will address each point below:

-Misleading advert: The one property you refer to did state all details correctly on the PDF and paper brochure. However, the online advert had not been correctly updated. This was corrected as soon as you highlighted the error. This was due to basic human error and all those that viewed the property were informed about the tenants, who were in situ at the time of viewings. This mistake should not have happened but was clearly a mistake and not an attempt to mislead anyone. I note the team did inform you of the tenant when you initially called about the property and you were going to come back to them after making some checks.

-Short-staffed: I would agree that over the past month or so due to isolation requirements, although no positive cases, some offices have been on a reduced team. However, all enquiries/calls/emails were responded to but not in our normally prompt manner. Thankfully, the full team are now back, safe and well.

-Offers: The owner of the property was informed of all offers and interested parties at the point they accepted the offer. We did not encourage or select the successful buyer. It can be disappointing when a homeowner opts to take someone else's offer and cancel all future viewings, something we wouldn’t advise, but this decision is solely down to the homeowner. They instructed us to accept the offer and cancel/stop all viewings. Everyone's circumstances are different and sometimes homeowners need to move on quickly due to personal, financial, or time constraints. This results in them not wishing to wait for future viewings and potential offers. You will see from our listings and marketing that we don’t encourage people to jump at the first offer, and don’t use promotional slogans such as “house sold in 24hrs”. Instead, we recommend sellers allow all viewings to occur and consider all offers. However, in this case, the owner opted to cancel/stop all viewings and accept the offer.

-Purchasers ID: I can confirm our process is very thorough and as you pointed out was still ongoing sometime later. We always seek proof of funds before a sale is agreed. We also require full identification checks to be completed by those who have had an offer accepted, before properties are marked as sold and sales memorandum drawn up. This would be why you found the property still marketed online. During these checks we leave the properties online, taking names & numbers from those interested but informing them that an offer has been accepted, whilst the required checks are completed on the buyers. We explain to those interested that should the checks fail or something happen to the sale, we will contact them to organise a viewing.

-Friend: I can confirm that the buyer of the property is not a personal friend of anyone within the team, or to the best of my knowledge anyone in the company. They are known to the business but no more so than anyone else who has bought or sold with our company.

We do take compliance, customer service and being transparent with our customers very seriously. Hence why we have fully investigated your comments and taken the time to reply fully here. Our complaints procedure and redress scheme provider aren’t hidden away but can be found on the footer of every page of our website – allowing anyone to report concerns.

I know it's disappointing, frustrating and upsetting when you miss out on a property. The final decision, whether you deemed that to be right or wrong, will always sit with the homeowner. We did approach the owner again and he confirmed he was aware of your interest then and now but didn’t want to progress this any further.

Hopefully, we can find you an alternative property soon. Thank you for your time.