Estate agent given 'special dispensation' to clone Fine & Country brand

A Fine & Country office in leafy Wimbledon has been given “special dispensation” to use the F & C branding.

As a result, the Finch & Company name looks like an F & C clone – something not normally allowed.

According to the stricture in section 2.5 of the Fine & Country brand guidelines, issued to member agents: “Never attempt to imitate the Fine & Country logo with your own name.”

But F & C chief executive Mike Bidwell explained: “Fine & Country previously licensed its brand to the former partners of Goodfellows estate agents after they acquired the Finch & Co business.  

“Finch and Co is a long-established estate agency brand in the Wimbledon area and Goodfellows, as an existing licensee of the Fine & Country brand, wished to incorporate Fine & Country into that office.  

“Because of the name awareness that the Finch & Co brand enjoys locally, Goodfellows wanted to be sensitive with the rebranding and implement the Fine & Country brand into the office over time.

“Fine & Country gave the former Goodfellows partners special temporary dispensation to incorporate the trademarked Fine & Country logo into the Finch & Co branding and the outcome was a smart looking estate agency office.

“The ownership of Goodfellows and Finch & Co changed hands recently to LSLi,  and Fine & Country is no longer licensing the brand in the Wimbledon area to LSLi, although we continue to license the brand to LSLi/Goodfellows in Cheam.

“As a result of this, the Finch & Co office will now be rebranded away from Fine & Country and this work will be completed by the end of next month. There will, after that time, be no cross-fertilisation of the two brands.”

* As previously reported, in a separate development, Fine & Country is taking Spicerhaart to court over the latter’s Fine marketing, which F & C says is “passing off”.

However, at EAT, we’d like the High Court to take a look at the actual content of the very similar (allegedly, of course) lifestyle advertising in the weekend property papers by both Fine & Country and Fine. Every advert says how much their owners love their houses in a kind of ‘til death us do part’ fashion – but if they love them that much, why are they selling them?