Purplebricks: turns out it was too good to be true

[DurhamDurham]

We signed up with Purplebricks to sell our home, the prospect of saving ££££'s was too good to pass up. However we found out our agent was telling lie after lie, told us we didn't have a valid EPC, quickly booking us in to have a new one with a colleague of his. We discover we do have a valid EPC and the agent goes on to conform that he infact uploaded it! ( he didn't remember to pass on that bit of good news to us) . Due to the attempted mis-selling of the EPC we don't have the confidence to believe that he would work in our best interests or be honest with us.

We cancel, after all we have a 'not strings attached 14 cooling off period'. We didn't just change our mind, we lost trust in the agent and the company. The agent apologises and sends us two texts to confirm that payment of fees will not be sought. However we've now had emails from head office demanding payment, the small print ( which is available to you after you've signed ) says that if we cancel, even within the cooling off period, payment will be sought as they have delivered a service costing the full amount.

We've copies of all texts and emails, we don't intend to pay and would rather go to court. Does anyone have any experience of dealing with Purplebricks or similar on-line agents?

Yep - too good to be true. I had an online chat with PB. Asked what I would be charged if I gave instructions to sell and then 3 months later decided to end the contract? The ANSWER, to my surprise, was the full fee.

So, PB may be worth it - but property must be sold through them.

A regular Estate agent will charge ZERO, if you remember to tick the right box in the contract. But, my experience is they will not tell you - you have to be very specific that you want "a no sale, no fee" contract.

I only joined this site to agree with all the other people on here in saying please avoid the crooks at Purple bricks at all costs! I truly wish I'd read what is on mumsnet before I got sucked in.
Each time I asked why my property gaining no interest all they would tell me was that it was too expensive & needed to be reduced even though they valued it at the price it was up for.
I decided it 3 times & they told me it still needed to go down £10,000 even though that was below the value I said I would be willing to sell it for when we very first met!
I'm going to the Ombadsman with my complaint but I truly doubt it'll make the remotest difference.
The only two things that Purple bricks have been good at is selling their product and writing their contract!!
:Purple bricks:

• Admitted to two complete breakdowns in communication, one which led to a person never replying, even though I waited 10 weeks & another taking 9 days,
• Admitted to over valuing my house by over £20,000+,
• Needed 4 written requests before they removed my house from the market,
• Initially told me that they do not have a complaints process as no one ever complains,
• I had to complain to four different people to get a completed complaint,
• The complaint was delayed for over 2 week before they put the 28 day process underway..... The final complaint report was so poor that any self respecting 11 year old would have been embarrassed to put their name to. All of this & they still told me that they have provided me with a perfectly reasonable service & that the only refund I was entitled to was a £100 for any minor inconvenience I might feel I had suffered. I doubt anyone will ever read this but at least I got it off my chest!!!!

I've read it and take note, Angry.

I noticed 3 houses in a road near me for sale with Purple Bricks just last week. On each of the notices, someone had blocked out (very carefully!) the bottom of the letter "B"!

our experience has been fine so far. got very close to asking price but the chain below has collapsed now. so far, so good for us. valued at same price as 3 other local agents. we've been kept informed with and agent is very pro active getting info on the chain above and below us and responsive to us when we contact them. its early days though. maybe the quality varies region to region. maybe we've got a more experienced agent, who knows? however, i will reserve my final judgement until we finally sell our house.

Our property is nearing £800K so any High St EA is going to be charging between 7,500 to 12,000 so to pay slightly over £1000 seems a fair punt as if it did not work we would got to an EA and try and negotiate a fixed fee.

The consensus of two estate agents and PB was 725-750 though we could try for more. Given that all use the same guide pricing book not a total surprise. We signed with PB and had a viewing a day late and an offer of £750K. We asked for a better offer and rec;d a slightly increased one which we have accepted.

This is of course early days and on completion we may be entirely happy. Given the potential saving for us it made sense, and we have no chain. Were we lucky? I guess we maybe were as London is a good market. And our house is not particularly common with 4/5 bedrooms.

If I had a house valued considerably less the differential would not be great and the attraction less. Particularly true if you need to buy a property or form a chain. However we have made so little use of their services I suspect I am not one to judge their possible failings.

If things go sour due to them I will let you know.