Harry Hill, legendary former boss of Countrywide and the founder of Rightmove, scored a PR hit in yesterday’s papers by announcing his latest venture, an online conveyancing service.
The Mail on Sunday hailed the new venture, saying the multi-millionaire estate agent was back at work, ‘shaking up his trade again’.
In a news story and a page-length feature, Hill spoke of In-Deed as offering a distinctive new service to home buyers by charging them a fixed fee of £650 – of which the site would earn £200, the remainder going to conveyancers who had to promise to keep clients informed every 48 hours.
Hill’s new venture is backed by 3i, the venture capital group that also unsuccessfully backed his management buy-out of Countrywide (the group was sold instead to American venture capital group Apollo at the height of the market in 2008).
Hill told the Mail this weekend that he planned for In-Deed to take 10% of market share within five years, by doing ‘a better and faster job’. According to another newspaper report, in the FT, Hill's new business will launch on AIM.
Hill famously bought Countrywide for £1 and built it up to become the UK’s largest estate agency chain. He was also the moving force behind Rightmove and yesterday told the Mail that he wishes that the brand had been taken further, into funerals and dating, for example.
Since finally stepping down from Countrywide, Hill’s other notable foray back into the estate agency business has been as chairman of JKM Property Solutions, a firm set up by Michael Bruce, formerly of Burchell Edwards.
The firm markets a highly complicated way of selling properties that need sprucing up.
Comments
Have just come across this article. Sorry, Harry but I'm afraid you're missing the point. CPL did most things and continues to do most things very badly. I have had to deal with them once again and again they live up to expectations. As a conveyancer I'm afraid CPL stands out amongst the crowd as being one of, if not the worst conveyancers certainly I have ever come across. And I know from colleagues that CPLhas a similar reputation across the industry. Also correct me if I'm wrong but was it not based on your business model? Will indeed follow InDeed with interest and a great deal of scepticism.
GOSH!
I have never during my business life sought to be the most popular man on earth-but didn't realise that so many people are so angry with me!
Again may I remind people that I have no ongoing relationship with CPL-but any business doing tens of thousands of transactions will of course do many things well-and some things less than well. The same thing can be said of surveyors, volume house builders etc etc.
Sadly the vast majority of contented clients just get on with their life-but disappointed customers, perfectly reasonably, make a lot of noise!
My new venture-which will be publicly quoted next week on AIM (almost certainly oversubscribed) seeks to raise standards in the conveyancing industry.
Our proposition to the public is 100% transparent-as is our pricing. Our disbursements will be charged at cost-unlike many existing service providers-and if we don't do a good job, we will fail.
If however we succeed in what we set out to do, I believe that we will be the trailblazer for others to follow and bring new capital and marketing savvy into an industry, which if it was as good already as some respondents claim would have no such opportunity!
Follow In-Deed Online plc with interest.
Thank you for reading
@Anna
Yes, a cheap shot spamming the forum.
The web site address is correct though - there is a new(ish) domain called 'co' - I alutomatically put .uk on the end thinking it was a typo but, no, if you type the address as spammed here - it does go to a rather strange site where people are offering to manage your property chains for you - for nothing!
Simon Hawkins , if you are stooping so low to try to get a free advert at least get the web site right!
Poor practice which reflects badly on you and others to try this
Apparently there is a additional admin charge for this service. Why pay an additional charge when you can get a similar but more comprehensive service at eprogress.co for FREE! Yes FREE!!!
www.eprogress.co
I am interested in what his input is into JKM. Is this likely to be all it is cracked up to be or just promises that cannot be met.
Has anyone experienced their service yet?
@HH
First of all respect where it is due, you know how to make money. If that is your sole goal, I am sure you will achieve it.
However, being the market leader/ most popular does not always equal providing a good service; just look what the Labour party managed to achieve with our economy/ Country etc having won the popular vote a few years back!
CPL was and remains the worst conveyancing 'service' (I use that word very loosely) I have ever come across. Rob H's example is by no means unique.
By the look of it, your new venture seems to offer a different business model and it will be interesting to see how it fares but, if you judge CPL to be a bench mark of success then God help the rest of us.
Real HH or not I doubt he is the slightest bit bothered by any negatives posted, his track record speaks volumnes, makes money.
Howvever, 10% market share would be massive, there is no subtance as to how he expects to catch it. He will need some big introducer agents to achieve that.
His shock may come when he has to service the lead introducer, up to now he has been able to just tell staff. Has he fooled 3i into thinking On line will crack it?
If thats the real HH, which i doubt it is...
Is the fact your own negs wouldn't recomend CPL dispite being told to and dispite the £50 kicker, not a massive wake up call? Why is keeping clients updated such a massive issue for you now? or did you always know that it was, just didnt care?
Harry, I was acting for buyer in Exeter in 2004 (approx), CPL for the seller, in Torquay. Long story short; seller had a title problem with garage and needed possessory title sorting etc. Too complicated for CPL. Seller on phone to me, crying, because she couldn't get any help or sense from CPL. I went to Torquay, inspected property, placated seller with best bedside manner, prepared all necessary docs etc (that CPL should have done). Two happy clients, one out of pocket conveyancer.
Maybe your new business model will work, CPL certainly didn't, only time will tell.
He drove the fastest milkfloat in the west... or was that Benny? Either way he's peddling cheap tat to the masses. Maybe it was Ernie... he's earning his crust from the fools who listen.
Hey guys!
I'm sorry if CPL isn't your cup of tea.
I have ad nothing to do with i for 3 years-but i t is market leader and is very profitable-so I suspect does a good job mostof the time.
My new service is not CPL mark 11.
It will panel exclusively to high quality lawyers and conveyancers prepared to sign up to exacting service standards.
It will not seek to push down fees in the industry-quite the opposite.
The proof of the success or failure as a public company will be for all to see.
Cant be any worse than Sequences Home
Con veyancing ;-)
Well if he cant handle his retirement that his problem. Maybe send him to sweden?
Countrywide's in-house conveyancing 'service' was worse than just bad, it cost us and our clients many sales and much money.
Like Mr HH's new service, they also, apparently, had set standards; they just never followed them! It got to a point where we told buyers using them that we would continue to market the property as 'for sale' or advise the seller to accept lower offers if they insisted on using them; they were THAT bad!
Cpl are the worst at customer service.... but with the highest fees.
This is what Mr.Hill is good at........making lots of money with no regard for the customer.
48 hour updates? Neither practical nor possible even if its just from a secretary.
are any of you guys planning to recommend this type of service?
I have heard that it will initially be a re vamp of cpl so all the countrywide lot recommend!
Harry Hill thinks he can improve things by ensuring the high street solicitor receives even less. Which will be best In-deed or the high street ‘there’s only one way to find out’. Fight!!!
I'll say it before anyone else does...
He should stick to comedy.
Arf!
Please make this kind of thing illegal.
Or something.
I hate conveyancing firms, in a big way.
And for GODS sake, he gets 35% of the fee for sweet FA and the conveyancer gets the rest for actually doing the work.
Well, that tells me how good the service is.
And yes CPL team 5 got my vote for the very, very worst bunch of ****s ever - mind you that was a couple of years ago.
RANT, snarl, swear, etcetera
CPL, worst conveyancing experience ever for many. Isn't this like the captain of the Titanic being given another ship?