Purplebricks wins apology from agency that claimed it was going bust

A branch of the Haart estate agency is reported to have apologised to Purplebricks for claiming that the hybrid agency was in financial trouble.

It appears the Haart agents concerned confused Purplebricks with Emoov.

The Nottingham Post is reporting that a Nottingham vendor selling his home through Purplebricks towards the end of 2018 - university technician Dan Hodgett - received a letter from the local Haart branch.

This apparently claimed that Purplebricks’ future was “uncertain” because of a “lack of funds” - the letter also linked to an online website.

However, the vendor could not find anything about Purplebricks’ apparent financial troubles because, it appears, Haart confused the hybrid with Emoov, which has now collapsed and was late last year in a lengthy period of financial distress.

The Nottingham Post quotes a spokesman for Haart saying: "The letters were sent out in error to a small number of recipients by an over-enthusiastic member of staff who had not received head office approval.

"Unfortunately he mistakenly claimed that Purplebricks were having financial issues when it was, in fact, a different online agency that was experiencing problems and which has subsequently gone into administration.

"After this emerged, we apologised unreservedly to Purplebricks who accepted our apology, plus we wrote and apologised to the recipients of the original letters.

"We have reviewed our internal procedures and requested that any marketing letters are sent to our head office for approval first."

You can see the full Nottingham Post story here.