Purple Bricks - Stories please?

[Rubberduckies]

We are considering selling our house and have been looking around at some of the options.

Someone at work told me about Purple Bricks which looks very interesting, and I like the idea of making it super easy for people to book viewings.

Does anyone have any experience in using them? And did anyone use the eezi conveyancing service like?

I'm also not sure about viewings and whether I would have time or inclination to do this myself - what did others do?

All stories good and bad, especially from the Bournemouth area with expert Mark Turk.

Thanks!

we bought a house through purple bricks. they did nothing to facilitate the sale. we had no contact with the local agent following our offer being accepted. local agent gave the vendor incorrect advice which nearly caused the sale to fall through. we had to liaise with vendor directly to push sale through as her conveyancers were completely incompetent (she didn't use ezie but some other online agency who didn't seem to know what they were doing ). the sale would have fallen through if wasn't for our conveyancer and us being on the ball.

all purple bricks do is market the property. they facilitate viewings for an extra charge which was also a waste of time because the agent who facilitated the viewing knew nothing about the property.

we could never get hold of the agent during sale process and the next contact we had with him was when he handed the keys to the property through his car window after we completed.

Be careful believing the current adverts using feedback from Trustpilot. They have some negative reviews removed - I have evidence to show they do this. By having negative reviews removed it increases the positive percentages and skews all the results!
If one leaves a review on Trustpilot it is likely to be picked up on by Purplebricks almost immediately in working hours so there must be someone whose job is to do this. Therefore viewers don't get a chance to see the negative feedback. Reviewers then have to jump through hoops to get it put back on - which most can't be bothered to do. Trustpilot should be trusting the reviewer and leaving the review up until the reviewer has a chance to confirm, but their money comes from the business so clearly it is not in their interests to do so?

PB also review themselves on trustpilot I believe.

They are very nice and convincing when you pay for their 'services' upfront. As soon as they actually need to start working for your benefit they are useless. I wanted to rent an apartment and the lady who showed me the apartment has had her phone completely switched off ever since I paid the company's agency fee. The referencing company they use is called Legal for Landlords who are as useless as them. The whole deal for the apartment came down after my employer called to confirm the reference and then Legal for Landlords claimed she had never called. Please, please avoid at all cost, no one should ever go through this!

My family have lost their house sale and had to pay PB and solicitor fees - their 'customer experience' advisor refuses to make any refunds despite partial refund of solicitors fees having already been agreed.

So now the next step is court as the ombudsman is fairly weak in relation to this company - so many serious complaints and so little being done. Watchdog exposure didn't even phase them!! The CEO and his team makes sure no-one can access them via email - that surely speaks for itself?
See you in court @michaelbrucePB #purplebricks

Apologies if I'm repeating people, there are a lot of posts to remember.
My reservations would be that you pay regardless. If you later decide to go multi agency, and the other agent sells your house, you still have to pay pb as well as the selling agent. That can be costly.
I'm also a bit concerned at where the motivation to sell your property comes from, because they get paid upfront. Even if you defer payment, they get paid and put you on a credit agreement to pay later.

My own experience is that I've requested viewings, and had difficulty confirming or being able to actually book.
However agents around here only do viewings on vacant properties or in circumstances like the seller is elderly. So that wouldn't bother me as I don't see it as any different.

Guys I work for purpletricks and their just there to get your money rather then sell your house. There's a reason why you pay up-front. In fact we try and talk you into taking the deferred payment option as we make more money on that because you have to use our conveyancing panel.

We are all for you until you sign up. Because once you sign up it job is done and we have been paid. There's a reason why you have not heard much from us when you've signed up.

Choice is yours.

I bought a house that was on with PB. chain free both sides and I'm glad it was as we did all the chasing, following up etc itself. I think in a longer chain that could have been difficult.
As a buyer, when we put in the offer, we put in a lower offer than I think I would have done if we'd have phoned and spoke to an actual person. It was slightly cheeky, but certainly easier to do online.

I attended a viewing conducted by the purple bricks guy. He was 10x better than any other estate agents we have met. He knew everything about the property, was very well presented, very affable. I was tempted to put in an offer just because I liked him so much.

Hi there, I think it may still make sense if I pay less and I think I can sell my property. In case I can't sell it and I am on the hook (I don't want to pay upfront but would rather pay at the end), what is the interest rate charge by Close Brothers? Thank you so much!

I am still waiting for Purple Bricks to contact me regarding a refund dating back to March 2017 despite numerous emails and telephone calls. This was for a property in South Yorkshire. The Agent is not interested in resolving the issue and refers us back to accounts who have made a number of promises and done nothing. The current situation is not tenable which means that it will now go legal due to the sum owed.

I had a disaster with them. Might work in an overheated property market, but not in a normal one where the agent actually has to do some real work.

There is a house in our street that has been up with PB since August last year that's still not sold. I suspect they are coming to the time where the owners will have to pay up, if they haven't done so already.

I used them after I read amazing reviews of them on Trust Pilot.

After my awful experience I tried to share it on Trust Pilot. It was immediately taken down because Purple Bricks claimed it was 'fraudulent'. Wrote to Trust Pilot and asked why. They told me to provide an invoice. I did that. They said it wasn't good enough, and I had to provide more. So I provided more personal correspondence proving I was a customer. Still waiting. Turns out Purple Bricks are a paying customer of Trust Pilot, and it enables them to have loads of random people post 5 reviews (look at how many of them are people who have never reviewed any other service anywhere on Trust Pilot) and basically block anyone who leaves 1 reviews. Then, when Purple Bricks advertise, they tell Google to include the Trust Pilot rating in their ad. So they basically manufacture a god rating and advertise against it and people like me are silenced.

I loathe estate agents, but at least they are motivated to actually sell your property, as its the only way they get (over)paid. Purple Bricks are purely motivated to sell their service, and once they've sold it they're motivated to make sure you don't speak out. Bad business model.

I can't advise about Purple Bricks, but I'm a conveyancing solicitor and an Ezie Conveyancing conveyancer (not solicitors!) asked me to give her a release yesterday (I.e. Start the exchange process) for completion on the wrong date.

My clients wanted the "wrong date" but hers didn't, so I was pleased and thought her clients had changed their minds, but she actually very nearly made a rather huge mistake for her client there! You don't really want that to happen to you, moving house is stressful enough

Also I would add that as a solicitor a good high street agent can really help if a chain starts to fall to bits. We don't even attempt to contact PB for help in such circumstances as they literally don't even return your phone calls.

In a new twist, after submitting a review on PB (a generous 3 stars) on trustpilot I got this response:

Thank you for taking the time to leave your review.

We are really keen to discuss the concerns you have raised and we would welcome the opportunity to speak with you further to fully understand your experience.

Unfortunately, we have been unable to locate your details using the information provided as I believe you were not a customer of ours, could you please supply us with your property address, phone number and email address to enable us to make contact with you.

Many thanks.

Kind regards,

Customer Support

Basically it appears they challenge anyone who doesn't give them 5 stars. I'm a bit shocked as I am in fact a customer so they didn't check that really before firing off that response

You get what you pay for i'm afraid. Use a recommended solicitor who are proven to be the best conveyancers and then you won't have to worry. Purple Bricks farm stuff out that they do not have the expertise to deal with and still try to charge if you decide they are not good enough. Do you want to save a few hundred £ or have peace of mind that you have not bought a lemon that you have difficulty selling at a later date. Not worth the stress as far as I'm concerned.
Choose a solicitor that the Estate Agents tell you NOT to use and you will be on the right track. Never use the solicitors that the Estate agents try to force on you or the lenders for that matter. The agent get an extra £600 commission from the law firm and the lenders. They use panel lawyers who delay everything and are not that clued up either.
If an agent tries to dissuade you from using a particular firm then it is because the firm asks too many questions on your behalf to ensure you have good title. Don't forget a solicitor is totally committed to act in your best interest and to look after YOU. Purple Bricks and Estate agents just want your money in their bank a.s.a.p.
If in Kent/ Sussex then Sussex Law Solicitors in Brighton are about as good as it gets at conveyancing. Wills and LPA's too just had mine done.

My property was placed with Purplebricks based on the fact that they are supposed to be cheaper than the trusted method of estate agencies. It has been with Purple Bricks for 4 months with absolutely no response whatsoever and no contact from their original representative Daniel Buck and precious little from his replacement, Arron Pooley both who, since taking my £900 pretty much disappeared off the face of the earth. It seems that once they have your money, they have no further interest in selling your property and when questioned only have the proposal that the price should be reduced. There is no doubt that selling can be a difficult process requiring a great deal of skill which Purplebricks lack entirely and if I had wanted to give the property away, I wouldn’t need their help to do it. In case you're thinking that it's because the house is overpriced, I have placed it with a proper estate agent who has secured 2 viewings in next to no time at all and has been very proactive in getting the property seen by potential buyers. MY ADVICE, DON'T TOUCH THEM WITH BARGEPOLE. They are a waste of time and money.

To balance things, everything has gone very smoothly for us so far with Purple Bricks. We used a particular EA on a recommendation from a neighbour, and he has been fantastic. We didn't have to pay up front and for us it was brilliant that they deal with everything...photographs, viewings, EPC and conveyancing...because we are moving due to my ill health so needed as little to do ourselves as possible.

We sold in just over 2 weeks at the price we wanted. Our PB guy has txtd/emailed regularly to touch base and ensure everything is progressing well. We look on track to be finished by July.

Bought and sold with then last year, horre doused both ways.

So much so that this time we didnt even consider properties on the market with them