Agents Behaving Badly? Accusations fly over listings and boards

A slew of allegations have been made against agents and sometimes even by agents, over alleged misdemeanours over property listings as well as For Sale and To Let boards.

An anonymous blog called Dodgy London Agents has appeared making serious allegations about named agencies; Estate Agent Today has made attempts to identify the author of the blog, which is an ‘amateur’ Wordpress work and looks like to be the work of just one individual.

It claims, amongst other things, that 62 per cent of agents in one part of London list what it calls “bogus” properties, and that agents have been engaged in what it calls “actively relisting” instructions every few days and weeks - something which sounds a little like the old ‘portal juggling’ that exercised some within the agency industry some years ago. 

The blog also suggests that 44 per cent of agents in one postcode have not posted the appropriate Energy Performance Certificate online and an anonymous email to EAT says: “A lack of enforcement means that more and more agents are happy to flout these rules.”

EAT has approached agents named on the blog but we have stressed that we do not know the author and cannot test the veracity of the claims.

Meanwhile an unnamed estate agent has come out on a local news website in the Acton area of west London accusing another smaller company of erecting as many as 30 ‘bogus’ For Sale and To Let boards.

A manager at the unnamed agency is cited by the Acton W3 Front Page website as saying it’s become a “free for all” in the area with competitors erecting signs on properties on which they have not been instructed.

The manager says the boards are in prominent locations to maximise the advertising value; the individual has apparently been in contact with the local council, which appears to be relatively powerless unless the boards block legitimate signs or are in the highway.

And in a separate incident, an unidentified group of individuals - or perhaps just one person - called Surrey Board Watch has been tweeting photographs of what it suggests are either out of date or unnecessary boards. In one instance Foxtons very courteously and promptly replied, saying it was looking into the issue.

This isn’t the first time Twitter accounts have been used to identify boards to which some residents have raised objections: Estate Agent Today did this report back in late 2015.