to ask if anyone else has experienced the sheer joy of Countrywide?

[DrSeuss]

Countrywide, stress on the first syllable. Could not consumate a relationship in a house of ill repute! Hate them! HATE THEM!!!!! Am planing to take 15 month old DD to their offices and let her loose if they don't do something soon.

Anyone else?

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest!

Have not used them and would not. They were conveyancing for the buyer of my last-but-one place (sold in 2011) who mortgaged via HSBC. It was shambolic.

I actually came within a few days of killing the deal - it took 4 months from agreeing a sale price to completing. About every other day of that my (excellent) solicitor was prodding them to progress...

our last house move, our blessed first time buyer wandered into the estate agent and signed up for chuffing everything with them. mortgage, conveyancing with country wide the lot.

it took 5 months. Before we accepted their offer I already had mortgage and survey done on the house we were buying. That person was moving into rented. So 3 people, 2 houses. Five Months. Our Solicitor let us have the joy of sitting in on his final phone conversation with them ( this was blessed solicitor who had moved us in 3 weeks previously). It was a masterful conversation that had Countrywide cowering. It included a time-line of their shambolic lack of action and the effect this was having on us, our vendor and their nice young couple who were about to lose their dream house, because we were sat in his office, instructing him to cancel the purchase- and would they like to speak to us?

it was cathartic. i would never accept an offer that involved them ever again.

I used them once as a letting agent for my house while we lived abroad for a while.

They were diabolically awful. Found out from the tenant that they thought they were terrible too - so it wasn't just the landlord's side they failed on, but also the tenant's.

They were the agents we used when we sold our last house (we were naive sellers) - terrible from start to finish. Took them to the Ombudsman as they wouldn't accept the commission I offered (obviously lower than I'd agreed to but on the basis that they delayed putting the house on the market and I pretty much wrote the sales particulars myself). Ombudsman agreed with my assessment of how much I should pay them. DON'T TOUCH THEM WITH A BARGEPOLE.

Took them to the Ombudsman and got compo. Absolute shambles.

They're known as cuntrywide in this house. Bunch of incompetents!

Yes, cunt being the operative word. Took a "fee" of £149 out of my bank account SIX MONTHS after a sale fell through (we were gazumped and pulled out), without my permission, using my card details. Made an official complaint and got £100 compensation. Utter shambles of a company.

4.5 months to complete here, both us and buyer used them