Mystery surrounds a letting agent which appears to have shut up shop, leaving landlords and tenants speculating about what has happened to the business and, apparently, their money.
Ayrton Properties, trading as The Property Showroom in Farsley, Leeds, is run by husband and wife team Mark and Samantha Hamilton-Smith.
According to the website, the company, which belongs to the Property Ombudsman scheme, is still trading in both sales and lettings. However, Samantha Hamilton-Smith resigned as director and secretary of the company on January 20, and local agents say there has been no sign of activity or of the couple at the premises since February 18. A local solicitor whose company logo appears on the website said the firm had had no dealing with The Property Showroom for some time.
One agent who went to The Property Showroom last week said he found the smart looking office shut, with no staff present and all the computer equipment gone.
Glenn Ackroyd, of National Property Group, said there was also a build-up of unopened mail, but no sign displayed indicating that the office had closed for business.
At a nearby lettings agent, he said he was told that they have been approached by over 20 landlords, whilst Ackroyd himself has been contacted by a tenant not knowing what to do about payment, plus landlords who claim they have had no rental income and that phone calls and emails are not being answered.
According to Google reviews of The Property Showroom, customers are less than happy.
One said that they had used the business to manage their property since January 2009: “Rent was rarely paid on time and as of February 2012, the business has gone into administration and/or ceased trading, and the telephones are not being answered.”
Another, apparently a tenant, says that they have been chasing them for over a year for money, but that the firm has not returned their deposit.
Ackroyd, an ARLA member, says he has been unable to make contact with the Hamilton-Smiths, but is advising landlords that the firm did not appear to be ARLA members and may not have client money protection insurance in place.
He is also advising them regarding tenant deposits, gas safety checks, and the tenancy agreements.
Ackroyd said: “I’ve informed any landlords in difficulty that we’d be happy to take care of the handover and administration to take back control. We would waive all admin costs and do this free of charge.”
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Comments
Thank you Ray, there is no need to worry about the prodding or the personal attacks, that is to be expected on both LAT and EAT. It is my choice to stir a pot that I think needs stirring and I know what I have to say could cause embarrassment to some,
I am not here to knock any particular product although it would be very easy to. Knowing the holes in my own and every one of my competitor’s products was the reason my team was consistently (over an 8 year period) converting 80% of all software demonstrations into sales. It was the work I did that has made sure an estimated 8-900 firms have stayed in business and not simply shut up shop and run off with what was left the client account.
Since 2007 too many agencies have gone into Lettings and Management as a way of supplementing or replacing income lost since the market went quiet. It is my opinion that many of them who are perfectly capable of Letting property simply do not have the skills to look after the Clients’ Cash properly. Many are reassured by the claims of RICS and ARLA compliance and a fair few will be thinking that ICAEW accreditation means that nothing can possibly go wrong with their Client accounting. This is simply not the case.
I have given two examples in this thread, not to have a pop at CFPWinman, Vebra Premise, CARL, LetMC, Focus, PropCo, or any other but to show that something as simple as the days in a year will thwart software designers whether they have Lettings experience or not.
For those people who think I am blaming the software because they have not read what I have written properly, please listen: it is not the software that is to blame it is the un-questioned reliance on what it pumps out backed up by claims of RICS/ ARLA/NALS/NAEA compliance that is causing the some honest people to sleep walk into problems. Without the basic maths ability to check even a simple landlord or tenant account many agents issue Statement Invoices that are not correct and in many cases not checked.
Example from an RICS, ARLA agent, a joint (50%/50%) owned UK property . Statement balance after fees for Landlord 1 = £103, Statement balance for landlord 2 = £250, each should have received £176.50. There was no other reason for the error other than bad code which had not been tested. The average agent has 200 landlords and that error repeated twice a year on tenancy renewals across the portfolio would show up as a fair old wad incorrectly paid to one landlord at the expense of another. The system would balance and reconcile because the bank run total was correct. It would not show up at audit because the payments match the paper work. However once this is discovered for any portfolio imagine the work to reverse both bank and landlord statements? The software isn’t to blame it is the agent who is at fault for not spotting this problem with statements they issued. This is how an estimated £68,000 did not disappear but gave someone a few sleepless nights.
SAFE agent have an opportunity to close a few gaping holes in CMP but they also have an opportunity to close a few hidden holes that will and are catching out innocent agents and having them tarred and feathered along with the rogues.
I've prodded Robert over this as much as anyone, more than most in fact, but he has now clarified how an agent could get themselves into trouble by bad accounting and misunderstanding how the accounts package handles benefits.
The personal attacks are out of order in my opinion.
There is at least one lettings package out there that is/was built around most of the tenants being on benefits; I tried it, it was rubbish but at that time (lates 90's) it didn't have a working accounting side to it, just management.
There are issues with some of the other pacakges; I use CFP Winman and have done since it evolved from the original APM DOS application; its not been without its issues; serious flaws in the accounting side for the first two years that left us with client accounts that didn't tally with the actuial money in the bank. But its not on its own, all of them have had teething problems and I think thats mostly due to them being written by software designers rather than letting agents.
But I would say its upto the agent to know their business; if simple adding up is beyond them or they don't understand how to deal with a change in rent status to benefits, or they don't realise that giving a landlord more money than they have collected is wrong, then they have no business being an agent.
I am busy during the week, so Sunday is when I catch up with newspapers, gossip, Agent Today (E and L) and the Archers omnibus
Seems like Mr May is on one doesn't it?
2 p from someone who he helped in 2011
Shutting up and running away was not an option for us, we are Law Society regulated as well as RICS and ARLA, our problem could have been very expensive and embarrassing for the partners had it not been for his help. 2 hours of his time with our auditor watching what he was up to and we were back in balance!
A 5 office firm not far from here were in the same boat, with Robert’s help same solution, same result.
Anyone who thinks Robert is stupid is either very smart, very stupid, or a competitor. The absence of an argument why he is wrong suggests the latter two. It might be that he is digging a hole but it could be a trap for someone else.
What happens if my current job is to spend all day posting on LAT?
Am I a jerk to those landlords, tenants and staff who do not lose money or jobs because I do what I do?
As for no win no fee, chasing posters, anon or not, who make blanket statements about others being thieves and crooks might be more lucrative than chasing after someone who knows how complicated software systems, installed, trained and supported by staff who have little or no experience of client cash accounting can cause staff who can not work out a percentage to set up and run a system that will eventually see a situation where there is no option than to close.
I probably am a jerk a big one too, but I am confident enough in what I know not to hide behind a posting name and I am prepared to help others who find themselves in situations that are not entirely of their own making, and I will stand up for people who are wrongly accused of wrong doing by cowards who jump to conclusions and make accusations without having many of the facts to hand.
@Hawkeye - Well said particularly your last paragraph.
@Robert May - Keep digging the hole you're in - you've nearly dug your way out.
@ Robert May
If you worked for me you would be sacked. As I see it you have spent from 9.48 until 18.22 farting around on this site instead of getting on with your work.
You are a major jerk with no brain between your ears and in all this time spent putting in sums and the like you have not pointed the finger at the software provider.
You are a crass waste of space so get a life.
Agents fail in the lettings business because they do not know what they are doing or they are thieves. All this crap about not working out the VAT amount is just a smoke screen for those who have done so in the past and are just washing their laundry in public. Wasters.
You do if it has been so long since you used the account that you can't remember the password!
I guessed you were a CFP user, you have been quoting me stuff that I wrote into the training schedule as best practice.It isn't stuff that NFoPP or NALS ever asked for, suggested or even hinted at, it is practice that I put in place to make sure that Agents were not routinely running off with Client’s monies.
My job at Jupix was to see that the client account module was as robust as it could be. A lot of stuff that can not be fixed in other programs* because of their* "legacy" code is correct in Jupix. That work finished in June last year when Martin and Co franchise felt that Jupix it was a suitable replacement for CFPWinMan.
* denotes more than one, not specific to one software provider.
I have not said there is anything wrong with any software and have not said what I think they were using.
As I said "I reckon I can identify what software they were using and if I am right then I have a fair idea why this has happened"
That isn't a statement that defames either the Hamilton Smiths, any Software provider or any software product.
Which of the 7 products that it could be from what you and I have both seen do you think I have been "tonking"? Whatever that is. Can you or anyone else name the 7 products?
Instead of trying to paint a picture that I have having a pop at any one provider listen to the point I am making, it is the over-reliance on technology that can lead an innocent proprietor into a professionally embarrassing situation. It is an unchanged message from the Charles Lawson story.
IT expert is something I am not and have never claimed to be, that is Rosalind Renshaw’s entry in Who’s Who, I am happy for it to be deleted or amended.
CFP currently & looking at the possibility of changing to Jupix (if it makes sense from a cost and functionality point of view)
I'm suprised you are having issues with changing your Linked In details given your computer experience, of course you don't actually need access to the e-mail to login.
Thank you for two Links it isn't possible to edit or delete either account without access to the accounts (I don't have use of the email addresses that allow them to be edited) you will notice that neither of them have been used in a very long time.
I haven't worked for Jupix since June 2011 Matt so my reply "None of them" is correct I don't work for any of software suppliers.
Prior to Jupix I was a Director at CFP Software with responsiblity for Sales, Training, Customer Support and CFP Design House.
I left CFP in Setember 2009 having built up a 43% UK market share Supplying what at the time was market leading Lettings and Management Software.
Does Jupix have any issues that I would change if I were still there, Yes?
Does CFPwinMan have any issues that I would change if I were still there, Yes?
Do any of the competitor products have issues that I would change, Yes?
Are any of the software suppliers without issue? Not last time I looked
What does all your detective work mean Matt? You have found out that I have 17 years coal face experience of client cash accounting from manual systems through to the latest cloud systems. I have been campaigning for all of those years to introduce an industry standard that protects client monies and for 6 years prior to TDS regulations had a workable system of Deposit and Advanced Rent protection that was only beaten by 2 people out of 2300 clients.
How many Clients have I seen that could eventually ended with a "gone away" sign in the door? several hundred.
What is the biggest un-itententional error in a client account I have seen? £750,000
Now you know about me and what I have done how about letting me know which software you use Matt?
"As for "I told you so" that isn't my style. Saying nothing is far more effective, try it!"
Yes, this seems a very good example Robert. Rather embarrasing at the same time though.
Matt
How did you guess :0
@Robert May
You Quote.........."The big clue is on their website which has not been cared for since 2009"
OK so you've told the world who the software provider is alleged to be. Are you also the Robert May the weblinks in an earlier post point you towards being? If yes then surely your CV includes a period of employment with such alleged software provider?
If any or all of this is true, given the tonking you've been giving said alleged software provider, I would think there'll be an ambulance chaser on their way round to see you with a defamation suit very shortly.
I caveat this post with the get out that you could of course just be using Robert May as a pseudonym (cos I don't want said ambulance chaser heading in my direction).
Maxwell, I take it your first name is Robert!
And of course all those issues you had back in the 80s was down to a software error?
Good news
I have just entered a journal on sage and i am now a millionaire - I'm off to spend it.
Mr May - all systems are built with flexibility and can be used in many different ways based on user set ups - surely as an IT expert you would understand this
"followed the advice she had been previously given" Yup, I gathered that. Does software make your brain cease to function? In which case, grab a pencil.
Robert- you did say earlier on these comments you didn't work for any software provider, could you therefore please clarify the following:
http://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/users/view/106847
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/robert-may/2b/3b9/418
I take it that Jupix doesn't suffer from any of these problems you have highlighted?
Not stupid Jimmy she was using a system that had a "work around" to cater for Housing benefits and followed the advice she had been previously given. A valuable lesson learnt. She recovered all £116,000 with a bit of help over 9 months and is still in business today.
Matt wants me to name the software I think the Hamilton Smiths were using, I won't do that till there is a bit more news about what has happened to them. The big clue is on their website which has not been cared for since 2009
Robert. That's £118,000 worth of stupid.
Robert, I hadn't asked for more detail, apart from asking you to name the software package that you thought had led to the issue in the main story.
I agree that good tenants can fall on hard times and it is better for them to temporarily claim HB whilst they are seeking new employment. But I don't think the software sytem should be changed, the rent is still x amount pcm and this doesn't change just because they suddenly find themselves on HB. In any event, the ones that do find themselves on HB temporarily, should be having the HB paid to them and then they should be paying the full amount of x pcm to the agent on the scheduled rent due date.
Come on Matt you can't ask me for detail and then moan it is confusing. Add 80 similar tenants to that scanario all with different start dates an you will see why some people get into strife with a system that is demonstraded as being easy to cope with Housing benefits.
What happens when one of your tenants lose their job and start receiving benefits? they are good tenants and bound to get another job soon.
The landlord has a mortgage and has been used to getting 12 statements, they will now get 13 statements for HB payments and 12 for the top ups.
Robert- In your very long (and purposely confusing) example! There are two simple answers...
1) Don't take on benefit tenants
2) and if you really have to, the agent should only ever pay over the net funds of the money received and communicate with the landlord as to what money has been received, what is still outstanding and when you expect the top up from the council to be received.
In response to apportioning rents, i would suggest, as we do, adjusting them in the system manually, this only needs to be done once, then the automation can be switched back on!
Spot on Ray until..... Betty who has being "doing the job for years, long before bl***dy computers B*gg*r*d things about" Does her check and can demonstrate the system is wrong because the way she calculates rent and apportionment is different to the "SysFtem" ( say what you see, F in system)
You are now faced with a call to support who adjust the system because everyone can see how Betty is right.
The cash, non cash adjustment or manual manipulation of the data has now really complicated things. This happens month after month and eventually the "bug" in the system gets put right because Betty was right and could show she was right.
We now have a situation developing, a few of the customers think thank goodness that rent calculation bug has finally been fixed, most don't notice but then some notice a "bug in rent calcualtions since the last update"
All the Beryls who work the way the old version worked now start moaning about the system having a bug in rent calculations, the Beryls are backed up by the trainers who know why the system worked like it used to so the system gets changed back.
This sysFtem is useFless let's change software! Yay the fun really starts. Closing balances, Opening balances and a Suspense account to cater for the Cash adjustments, non cash adjustment, support data maniplulations and human Errrs.
Shall I get started on un-reconcilable Items or can you see how a bunch of well intentioned people all doing what they know to be correct can end up in a situation they can not understand or explain.
This is not about any particular software system it is about the absence of proper control over £ Billions of Clients' money compounded by the fact that lots of people don't do Maths very well and some do not know that you only pay a landlord what you are holding for them.
DerYerTekDSS? YehWeDo! WosDerEntDen?
£700 pcm! Ready?
Benefit agree contribution to rent of £600, what is the top up payable by the tenant?
(This is a trick question that can not be answered but is it ?)
A £100 pcm
B £50 pcm
C it is trick question
At the end month 1 the tenant has paid their £50 and their account is up to date. (really it is) How much do you pay the landlord?
A £700
B £630
C £50
D £45
After a bit of heated discussion you give the landlord his £45
What commission rate am I charging?
A 10% inclusive of Vat
B 10% exclusive of VAT
C 8.33% exclusive of VAT
(Another trick question)
The landlord comes back after lunch ( a little lubricated ) and says he is going to the Ombudsman His mates down the pub reckons £700 pcm means £700 each and every month so "hows comes dat teaving agent has only given yers £45? "
What happens now? Do you hand over
A £655
B £585
C £0 and take your chances with the ombudsman.
Ready to move onto month 2?
The rent calculation is run and the system now correctly shows that you are owing the landlord £1350 (-£700 for last month plus -£700 for this month plus £50 paid by tenant minus your 8.33% plus VAT) -£700 + -£700 + £50 – ((£50X (8.3333/100) + (£50X (8.3333/100)X(20/100)) (there might not be enough brackets in that calculation)
Mr Landlord gets a letter from UK Asset Resolution, the emergency ‘bank’ set up by Government to manage the buy-to-let mortgages originally lent by Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley. UK Assett would like some the outstanding mortgage please.
Mr Landlord is very angry and demands his £1350, he threatens to call the police how much should you give him?
A- £1350 that after all is what the system says he is owed
B- £1215
C- £0
You correctly pay him nothing, £50 comes in from the tenant and 3 weeks later if you are lucky you get a cheque for £1200 from benefits.
£1200 + £50 = £1250 even before the agent takes any commission £100 is now missing. Where has it gone? Is it
A. A fault with the system
B. One of the staff has run off with it
C. Not missing
10 days later the system calculates the rent and the landlord is now owed how much?
A £800
B No Idea, you have lost me
C £0
Tha Agent has correctly paid the landlord everything he has received, the tenant is up to date with their top ups and benefits will be sending another £600 any day now.
Yet Mr landlord has a very bad tast in his mouth and is owed £800. Even if there is a cheque for £600 and another £50 from the tenant the £100 that went missing last month has gone up to £150, so if the agent is losing £50/ month the top up should have been £100 just like Lucy said it should. Yes!, No? Don't know?
This one example cost someone I knew over £116,000.
I see that Robert, but how would that cause an agent to lose enough money, clients rent as well as deposits, to force them to close down.
The landlord only gets the rent the agent collects regardless of how its calculated; whether weekly or monthly. Finances are there in black and white to be seen, the figures aren't going to change when someone checks the 'brake fluid'
The perfect metphor to prove my point!! lol
Robert May posted:
What happens if; brake fluid looks like brake fluid, smells like brake fluid and is the brake fluid that head office have supplied, you fix the brakes but then the driver reports that after 80 miles of a journey the brakes start to fade.
You test the brakes find nothing wrong, the driver goes away comes back complaining of brake fade after 80 miles.
This goes on for week after week, eventually there is an accident, the cause turns out to be the Brake fluid gassing after 80 miles. Is the garage owner culpable now? He put his faith in a brake fluid that his head office recommended, but it was only a freak circumstance of a twisty turny 80 mile commute that caused the brake fluid to gas and the brakes to fade. Every time the car went to the garage and the brakes were tested the fluid was cold and so the fading never showed up.
In fairness thats going to cause your business a problem but probably won't close you down.
BUT now apply that scenario to ALL of your customers turning up and complaining of brake fade. If that doesn't make you stand up and take notice then you deserve to fail. Unless of course you haven't been using the brake fluid supplied by head office but your own home made concoction so that you can pocket lots of money!
This year is a leap year so we have 52 weeks plus yesterday the 29th February , correct? sounds correct, looks correct so it must be correct until one looks at how software calculates rent or the apportionment of rent.
Try these calculations which should all give the same result but will demonstrate that 100% isn't always 100%
If an agency has 200 tenancies paying an average £700/month
200 tenancies X 12 months X £700 pcm = £1,680,000
or 200 tenancies X 52 weeks x £161.55 PW (£700/4.333) = £1,680, 120
or 200 X 52 X £161.54 pw ((700 X 12)/52) = £1,680.016
or 200 X 365 days X £23.08 per day = £1,684,840
and on a leap year 200 X 366 X £23.08= £1,689, 456
You could try for a leap year 200 X 52weeks X 7 days +1 (29th Feb) X £23.08 = £1,680, 247.10
or 200 X 12 X 700 + 200 X 23.08 = £1,680,223.10
OK now we have calculated the rent and come up with a selection of answers we now want to apportion 15 days rent because a tenant wants to pay their rent on the same day as they get their wages which method should we use? PCM X 12 divide by 365, PCM X 12 divide 365.25 or any of the other variations
The point being, there is no industry standard to calculate something as basic as rent, If you are not aware of how your own system is programmed how is it possible to check anything, Apportion anything or reverse any mistakes?
Robert- I know car mechanics may have a better repuation than estate and letting agents at the moment but the metaphors are pointless. A client account is either 100% correct or it is wrong, whether intentional or not!
@Robert M:
I am open mided on your theory, but please don't be a tease and give us more specifics???
You may well be right - impart your knowledge!
Actually Jimmy I would do better than that I could tell you why it couldn't calculate VAT and who knew it couldn't calculate VAT. I could also explain why you thought it did calculate VAT and why you thought it didn't matter.
As for "I told you so" that isn't my style. Saying nothing is far more effective, try it!
What happens if; brake fluid looks like brake fluid, smells like brake fluid and is the brake fluid that head office have supplied, you fix the brakes but then the driver reports that after 80 miles of a journey the brakes start to fade.
You test the brakes find nothing wrong, the driver goes away comes back complaining of brake fade after 80 miles.
This goes on for week after week, eventually there is an accident, the cause turns out to be the Brake fluid gassing after 80 miles. Is the garage owner culpable now? He put his faith in a brake fluid that his head office recommended, but it was only a freak circumstance of a twisty turny 80 mile commute that caused the brake fluid to gas and the brakes to fade. Every time the car went to the garage and the brakes were tested the fluid was cold and so the fading never showed up.
It is circumstance that will catch a lot of well intentioned people out
If an aeroplane, travelling at 500 mph, crashed into a property showroom due to inflight software that coudn't calculate VAT, Robert could say "I told you so".
If a restauranteur gives people food poisoning, will bhe be any less culpable if he was well-intentioned and his poor hygiene standards were down to lack of knowledge or using poor quality cleaning products?
If a car mechanic doesn't fix your brakes properly and you subsequently crash is he any less culpable if he was well-intentioned but he didn't properly understand how the brakes worked or used the wrong type of brake fluid?
If you run a restaurant its your job to feed people without poisoning them. if you're a mechanic its your job to fix cars and not render them dangerous. If you're a letting agent its your job to correctly account for client money.
@ Robert May
I'm sure none of us - ok, perhaps a couple do :-) - think you are a troll or mad but this is the second time you have intimated that the collapse of a letting agent is probably due to accounting procedures without going into specifics?
I'm not sure what your connection is to the industry, or how much experience you have had with letting agent collapses, but in my experience few are caused by someone paying too little VAT or paying a landlord a little bit too much rent.
I have been counting up the number of agent crashes I've seen over the 20+ years I've been in the industry; its around 14 give or take. Only one of them admitted to being a 'bad businessman', the others were just thieves.
Accounting errors account for problems that result in landlord and agent sitting down to resolve the issue, and usually the agent rectifying it with their own funds, not the closure of offices leaving dozens or hundreds of people looking for their rent/deposits etc. The only accounting issue there is usually that the owners have 'accidentally' sent all their client money to an off shore account somewhere.
The recent collapse in Milton Keynes of a large agent left landlords and tenants hunting for over £1million pounds; that hasn't been lost by a simple repetitive accounts error.
Matt I quoted you one specific example by way of an example.
I will post more later on but I have to nip out to take some photographs of a plane that crashed on Sunday.
Thank you for the less hostile attitude, I am not a troll and I am not mad.
A technology induced crash can happen with all of the software systems, not just one. The use, training and support of the system can have as much influence over the outcome as the quality of the software itself.
If the Hamilton-Smiths are around and reading this they can contact me via Rosliand Renshaw and I will give them some advice on a situation that will only get worse the longer it is left......
And before anyone thinks or suggest I have some hidden agenda or profit motive, I don't.
@Robert May "In the same way as an AAIB inspector understands why perfectly servicable aircraft sometimes hit the ground"
But when it does, they don't keep flying it. That is the point.
If landlords are moaning they aren't getting their rent, you find out why and resolve it. I suspect it will be discovered there was a cash-flow issue. Otherwise, those rents would just be sitting in an account. I bet they aren't. ANF I bet there is a historic clients account deficit.
Robert,
It does sound like you are suggesting there is one specific piece of lettings software that has been designed to mess up clients accounts. As per our previous exchange on a different story it sounds like said software has a fundemental flaw of not being able to calculate VAT amongst possibly other things.
If this is a fact, there should be no issue with libel so can you therefore name and shame this software so everyone can avoid it. That way, hopefully all these agents about to shut up shop can do their client accounting properly, stay legit and keep their doors open. And as you have indicated they wouldn't run off with, in some cases hundreds of thousands of pounds of their client's money!
@Robert May on 2012-03-01 11:43:30
Do you refer to just any software or a specific software?
In either case you could be in danger of actually appearing a "smart rrrs" if youre not a little more specific?
That will get the same reply as asking an Air Accident Investigator which Aeroplane manufacturer they work for; None of them.
In the same way as an AAIB inspector understands why perfectly servicable aircraft sometimes hit the ground I understand why well intentioned people using software manage to stuff up their clients' account to the point where they are forced to close the doors and run away.
Robert May - Out of interest what software provider do you work for?
Read what I have written Dave, I have not blamed the software!
Robert - If a tenant had been chasing them for over a year and landlords report rents were rarely paid on time, then they MUST have been aware there was a problem and as such could reasonably foresee further problems for their clients. This is negligence - pure and simple.
To blame a software system is insane.
I am bound to get another flaming from those who think that cases like this are simply down to the agent being bent but this one really does have all the hallmarks of a technology induced crash that has being building up for at least 3 years.
Without wanting to sound like a smart rrr's I reckon I can identify what software they were using and if I am right then I have a fair idea why this has happened (again).
I best 'Kelly & Co' property solicitors rue the day they had their logo and link added to the Property Showrooms website!
http://www.thepropertyshowroom.co.uk
I agree with EW; when Thomas & Co Rentals closed down in Milton Keynes we offered a similar helping hand those affected on both sides and mostly got abuse from angry landlords and tenants.
The phrases "all agents are the same" and "I'll never use an agent again" are still ringing in my ears!
Well done Glenn.
Yeah if that happened to an agent near me, I'd be in there like a shot too! Reeeeesult!
Glenn Ackroyd - you cant win. When we supported local landlords who between them lost nearly £500,000 when an agent folded - some said we just did it for ourselves.
You will inevitably pick up some business as a thank you for helping - but you will be involved in sorting out a lot of work where landlords will have lost confidence in renting from which you will gain no more than appreciation.
Its a valuable service and a great advert for professional agents from which you should get some reward.
We produced a factsheet detailing landlords responsibilities and simply offered an advice line.
Some landlords will be astonished at their liabilities and can take it out on the wrong agent!
Well done and good luck.
Well done Glenn Ackroyd - a great example of a professional agent. We did the same thing 2 years ago and it was really appreciated by landlords.
Its also a stark warning as to why customers should only use regulated agents and shows the misunderstanding of who had CMP and who does not - the TPOS badge offers a false sense of security.
This is a sad episode, but a valuable lesson which needs to be publicised as a warning to others.
Great press release from the agent who will happily pick up the pieces.... No admin fees too!
:-)
It is not clear but was the Property showroom part of the National Property Group?
NPG claim on their site: We've developed systems and processes that leave nothing to chance - attention to every detail ensures that we maximise your net returns.
If Property showroom is a associated with the National Property group, who I had never heard of till this morning, does the National Property Group now gather up the pieces and put poor Humpty together again?