Agencies & People
News covering the businesses, activities, people and personalities in estate agency and letting agency and wider residential property industry.
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Auction House Beds & Bucks’ new website
Auction House Beds & Bucks has launched its new eye-catching website at www.auctionhousebb. co.uk.
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Martyn Gerrard laments “overreaction” to ad that ASA wants taken down
An estate agency asked to remove a poster advert from an Underground Station in north London by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) following a complaint from the public has hit out against the decision. David Smith (pictured, below), who is Marketing and Compliance Director at 14-branch Martyn Gerrard, says that although in the “strict interpretation of the rules” the ASA code means the complainant is technically correct, he wonders is this is “really the sort of image they had in mind when they devised their rules? I very much doubt it”. “We were quite surprised to receive the letter from the ASA,” he told The Negotiator. “This particular advert was on an underground station platform and had been up for over a year.” The ASA rules say an advert can’t condone or encourage an unsafe practice or show anything that will result in physical, mental or moral harm. The ASA wrote via email to Martyn Gerrard on 10th March and in his reply to them David agreed to take the advert down, as we reported yesterday, but highlighted his disappointment with the request. He wondered if the complaint may have come from a “vexatious competitor agent” rather than a concerned…
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SDL launches in the North West
SDL Auctions, one of the UK’s largest auction networks, is to hold auctions at Bolton’s Macron Stadium with the first date set as Thursday 30th March.
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Auction House London partners with Countrywide A new partnership deal means that Auction House London will now sell all future auction properties listed by Countrywide in the capital.
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Excellent start for Emson
Clive Emson has sold land and property worth more than £13 million at its first sale of 2017.
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High profile agent withdraws London Underground ad after complaint
Sales and letting agent Martyn Gerrard has withdrawn a London Underground poster ad after a complaint from a member of the public. The ad, pictured below, which to some people might seem like a feel-good and innocent piece of advertising creative, featured two children – a boy at the top of a flight of stairs and a girl sliding down the stairs in a washing basket while wearing a cycling helmet and swimming goggles. The strapline for the advert was “oMG…that was a good move…Making your next big move more enjoyable”. The north London agent, which has 14 branches and was established in 1964, re-branded recently and has been advertising in the capital to support this with a series of ads featuring goggle-wearing children enjoying ‘good moves’ – including a girl clutching a toy rocket. But the latest one clearly didn’t amuse one member of the public. Complaint They complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that the poster ad was likely to “condone or encourage children to copy an unsafe practice and whether the ad was also likely to be responsible”. “We contacted the advertiser about the concerns raised and they agreed to remove the ad from circulation,” an…
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Humberts to build up lettings operation once more
Senior industry figure Suzanne Diamond has joined Humberts as the company begins rolling out lettings – again – beyond its existing but exclusively rural network of 23 sales offices. The appointment of Suzanne to establish a lettings business brings Humberts full circle. The company, which split from Chesterton three years ago, at the time sold its entire lettings operation to Hamptons International for an undisclosed sum ahead of its relaunch in the Summer of 2014. Suzanne has had an illustrious 14-year career in property. This has included a long spell at John D Wood where she headed up their Weybridge office. Her performance at John D Wood marked her out as a rising star and she took part in Countrywide’s senior management training programme during the early noughties. In 2013 she was national runner up at Countrywide annual awards for attaining the largest branch income growth. But Suzanne then moved to Curchods, an independent agency in Surrey with 21 branches where she was tasked with growing their lettings business, and was later promoted to Group Lettings Director after setting up and growing a lettings operation for sister company Burns & Webber, also based in Surrey. “I am extremely passionate about Lettings…
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Braemore acquires Click-Let
Braemore Sales and Lettings has acquired the Edinburgh lettings business, Click-Let.
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Rogue letting agent jailed after stealing holding deposits worth £15,000
A “thoroughly dishonest” rogue letting agent in Croydon, South London has been jailed for failing to pay back holding deposits often for the same property and totalling £15,000 following a two-week trial. Thirugnanaselvam Damayantharan, also known as Mr Damo, was sentenced to 19 months in jail for the offences, which included taking multiple deposits for the same property, letting properties he had no authority to do so and failing to return deposits when tenancies fell through, despite being through no fault of the tenant. At the court hearing the letting agent denied two counts of fraudulently trading as two companies – See Own Properties and My Lawn Estates – over the past six years, although the unreturned holdings deposits related to 33 properties. See Own Properties, which is still trading but the annual accounts for which are overdue, is registered at a Regus office facility in central Croydon (pictured, left). My Lawn Estates, which advertised on Rightmove but has now been removed but is still listed as ‘active’ at Companies House, was expelled from The Property Ombudsman in 2015 for two years. During the case, which was brought by Croydon Council Trading Standards, the court heard that Damayantharan, who was…
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Will conveyancing reform proposals see return of HIPs?
House moving is about to undergo a considerable revolution if a new set of plans to reform the UK conveyancing process come to pass – including plans to introduce a version of HIPs. The proposals are within the Conveyancing Association’s (CA) plans to shake up the conveyancing process published today. The association, which represents conveyancing firms, intends to improve almost all the sticking areas of the process that enrage so many vendors and buyers and frustrate agents as completion dates lengthen. Firstly, it wants to add ‘certainty’ to the black hole that is the conveyancing process at the moment as well as help stamp out fraud and upgrade the quality of communication during the process. To achieve this the CA says it will work with the whole property industry including estate agents to develop and implement its plans, partly because several of its proposals (see below) will require some heavy lobbying of government to get laws and regulations amended. The proposals In a nutshell, the CA’s plan document includes proposals to develop a centralised and improved ID verification process, introduce a HIPS-style ‘E-Home’ report prior to property marketing and a standardised reservation agreement for new homes sales. Other proposals include…
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