Lettings agency wins payment off software firm for ‘wasted time and lost business’
Key One Property in Belfast reveals it took threatened court action to persuade the lettings software platform to provide compensation.
An estate agency has won an out-of-court settlement from one of the largest suppliers of industry software including £5,000 for “time wasted and lost business”.
The case brought by Belfast firm Key One Property followed its earlier decision to sign up for the software provider’s main lettings platform late last year following promises that it would be ‘simple and intuitive’ to use.
But after initial training sessions, Key One’s spokesperson says this proved to be far from reality, with the software turning out to be ‘complex’ and that the agency struggled to provide statements for its landlord clients and ‘ultimately failed to do so’.
Unnecessary layers
“This was in part due to the unnecessary layers of complexity within the product, but also because of an inherent defect which they failed to disclose, namely that we could not transfer landlord’s balances for individual properties into their system,” says the spokesperson.
“Not being able to produce statements or even to be able to pay a client what they are due was eroding the credibility and trust with our landlords; trust that we had worked very hard to build up over many years.”
Key One Property says it wasted a lot of staff time on the product and lost some business as a direct result of the software’s failures and after a month trying to make the software work, was forced to abandon it and end the contract prematurely.
When we requested compensation, they resolutely ignored us.”
“The supplier continued to ignore our communications for several months. Only when we commenced legal proceedings did they eventually start communicating with us regarding our claim. At first, they attempted to pressurise us into dropping the claim, even stating that “this could get very expensive for you”. However, we were confident that a court would find that the supplier had mis-sold us a defective product and refused to drop proceedings.
“Eventually the supplier made an offer of compensation which was accepted by this agency and legal proceedings were ceased.
Looks good
“Software suppliers to the lettings/management industry really need to understand their customers better and build packages around the customer and not what they think looks good.
“In our research we found too many suppliers had failed to deliver the core elements of required software, focusing instead on secondary, less important features.”
Part of the out court settlement is that the supplier involved will not be named.
Pic credit: Key One Property
That’s why I wrote my own online version in C# over the last 10 years, I’m tempted to give to everyone free. No issues here.
That sounds All to familiar.
Delighted this settled out of court saving time and money for both sides.
I’m curious to know if mediation was used to achieve the settlement, as it’s very effective.
It sounds from Key One’s research that this is not an isolated incident and there could be more agents in a similar position.
If you’re unfamiliar with the benefits of mediation and why it should be part of your business risk mitigation strategy, here’s a heads up:
* it’s confidential and ‘without prejudice’ which means nothing leaks out, so anything said in mediation stays in mediation and can’t be held against you in court (I see the software supplier in this case can’t be named as part of the settlement), so it’s a good reputation management tool and preserves relationships.
This means people are more likely to engage in the process and any agreements are more likely to be complied with because they’re not court imposed.
The confidentiality rules prevent mediators disclosing one side’s secrets to the other without consent, so people feel safe disclosing commercially sensitive information to the mediator.
Wouldn’t you love to know what “they” are really thinking? They won’t trust you enough to tell you, but they usually tell the mediator.
This means it knows the secrets in both camps which can be used to find common ground on which an agreement can be reached (mediators don’t impose solutions, they facilitate the parties to do that for themselves).
* it’s way quicker and cheaper than court – settlement happens in a day or shortly after in 90% of cases. Fess are in the low thousands (or even hundreds) not tens of thousands of pounds, and mediations can be arranged in weeks not years.
* it’s voluntary, so you can’t be forced to do or agree anything and can negotiate freely. You get to decide how it ends, and settlements are legally binding.
* being genuinely neutral, mediators are not emotionally involved so can ensure people think rationally in a forward focussed way, not heated and backward looking – “where are we going?” not “how did we get here?”).
They get to the heart of the problem by finding out not WHAT you’re arguing about, WHY why. It’s not about winning and losing, but being better off.
It’s also an effective way of resolving multi-agency fee agreements, especially for fees over £25K which The Property Ombudsman can’t deal with (we had an enquiry on this last week).
Contact me at The Property Mediation Centre if you’d like to find out how mediation can help you (or your clients) settle (or avoid) your conflicts.
You can find me on LinkedIn.
Decorous !