A Surbiton estate agent has apologised for an email, apparently erroneously sent to a prospective tenant, describing her as a tart who may bend over.
Zoe Butler, 25, had asked KT Residential to view a property in the town with her boyfriend.
A Surbiton newspaper reports that KT Residential agent Daniel Grove replied by email, offering a viewing time. But beneath the message was another email, allegedly sent from a director of the company, stating: Boss, want to do a l8 [late] viewing with this tart She may bend over for you!
Zoe Butler replied, asking: Do you generally talk about your potential tenants like this
Grove responded with: Not at all, it was an extremely immature and inappropriate comment made by my colleague on our internal system.
No one from KT Residential was available to comment to Estate Agent Today but the newspaper article quotes the firm's director, Daniel Dow, as saying: I will have to deny I wrote the email. I guess I could have been hacked. It could be someone trying to frame me. There are people out there who might want to tarnish my name. I think the best thing to do is apologise if anything has come out that has upset someone.
Zoe Butler said the statements in the email made her feel very small and upset.
Comments
One assumes, as he is a (perhaps the) director, he'll need to discipline himself. Unlikely as he can't quite bring himself to own up to the faux pas. There is a cautionary tale in here somewhere though for all the cocky little blighters that are happy to bite the hand that feeds them (when they think the owner of the hand wont notice). Have a look over your shoulder first!
Who made this public to EAT Storm in a tea cup about a throw away remark. Strongly discipline him. The end.
It is a great shame that 'No one from KT Residential was available to comment to Estate Agent Today', as they may have been able to come up with a slightly more respectful response than the totally inadequate comment from the director. The complete lack of remorse from the director is inexcusable.
Be man enough to accept that you made a mistake. The attempted denial looks pathetic and just makes you look even more untrustworthy.
Everyone makes mistakes but it is how you deal with them that defines you.
I would have to agree with 'The JB' - the naive denial attempt makes this 10x worse
Truly shocking on the part of the Agent and my sympathy is with the tenant ( but it did make me laugh out loud ! )
The 'I was hacked' line ranks up there with 'The dog ate my homework' and 'you'll never believe what happened on the way to work...[insert implausible reason for not turning up for work probably involving martians]
Utter pillock. Admit you've been a prat and move on.
Denying it when it's right there in an email I feel very sorry for the tenant and for anyone associated with this agency. What an utter disgrace. In this day and age, to talk to or about your customers like that in a professional environment with clients expecting and paying for a certain caliber of customer service - outrageous. Throw the book at the agent responsible. I agree with Daniel - I'm severely lacking confidence as a landlord now if this is what goes on behind some closed agency doors. Time to raise the bar!
How unprofessional and embarrassing for the prospective tenant. You'd expect people to be more respectful, especially in a professional environment - Being this crude, immature and derogatory, in the first place is disgraceful, not to mention then forwarding it to the tenant!
This isn't very reassuring to us landlords. I know this is an isolated incident, and the stupidity and carelessness of one or two estate agents shouldn't tar the whole profession, but such puerile and pathetic behaviour doesn't fill me with confidence. Makes me think dealing with everything myself, rather than getting a lettings or estate agents to do the legwork, is the most sensible option.
Obviously disgraceful...but on a point of order to EAT, it's really important to get your terminology right here. I don't want to be pedantic, but you say it was an email to "a client". The tenant is generally not a client. The landlord/vendor is. There have been several legal precedents whereby vendors have avoided paying agency fees because the agent told the vendor that they had "a client" coming to view the property. The vendor successfully argued that if the buyer was regarded as the client, then there was a clear conflict of interest and the vendor should not be paying fees.
I'm a great believer is representing buyers as well as sellers (but never in respect of the same transaction) and it is increasingly important that this terminological distinction is understood if agents are to protect their fees.
NB There is a module about representing buyers at AgentMasterclass.co.uk
Not bright. Episodes like this just reaffirm the negative stereotype of estate agents as the most hated profession in the country, when the majority of us arent like that at all. The non-apology and attempt to pass the buck don't help. He made a terrible error of judgement, he got found out, he should have been more contrite, not blaming a 'collleague'.
So - he didn't do it, but he is also apologising Hacking seems rather unlikely to me.