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Written by rosalind renshaw

A feud between two local estate agents has once again come to the boil, with a new complaint to the advertising watchdog.

This time, Clarets Estate Agents, of Bushey, Hertfordshire, were reported by Imagine Estate Agents. Imagine’s complaint was upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority.

Last November, Clarets complained to the ASA about Imagine and the complaint was upheld.

Imagine retaliated with a newspaper advertisement, attacking Clarets for having reported it. The advert said: “… one of our less amiable competitors complained we had created a leaflet that contravened ASA regulations and reported us accordingly.

“In fact, let’s not pull any punches, this wasn’t one of our less amiable competitors, this was by some distance the most unpleasant little reptile I have ever had the misfortune to cross swords with since plying this trade.”

Clarets, which displays the NAEA logo, complained again about Imagine in January, and again the ASA upheld the complaint on the grounds that it was derogatory.  

But now Imagine, which displays the NALS and SAFEagent logos, has successfully complained about Clarets.

The complaint was over an advertorial which appeared last March in the regional press which made a number of claims about Clarets’ business and the property market.

Imagine Estate Agents challenged whether the following claims were misleading and could be substantiated:

1. That the advertiser had sold “thousands of properties in Bushey over the years”;

2. “… we also advertise extensively, more than any other estate agent in Bushey. We have pages in My Bushey News, the Harrow Times and the Watford Observer”;

3. “We believe we can have your home under offer within four weeks of you putting it on our books. If we don’t, we’ll halve our fee. So far this is something we have not had to do because we have been getting offers for vendors.” Imagine believed it was not possible to have every property under offer within four weeks;

4. “The market is really busy at the moment and contrary to some reports it’s a good time to sell.”

Asked by the ASA to respond to the complaints, Clarets said they had been open for ten years and provided, on a confidential basis, the figure for how many properties they had sold during that time. They believed that figure could reasonably be described as “thousands”.

Clarets said there were currently three local papers in the Bushey area and they advertised with all three. They argued that all Bushey agents advertised in the Watford Observer but they were the only Bushey estate agent to advertise in both the Harrow Times and My Bushey News as well.

Clarets said in addition they advertised on seven online property portals and had been through all of their competitors’ websites, and their next nearest competitor only advertised on six property portals while the complainant’s company advertised on five. They provided a list of which agents advertised on which property portals, which they said proved that they advertised with them all. They said they also had pages on Facebook and Twitter.

Clarets explained that the statement, “We believe we can have your home under offer within four weeks of you putting it on our books”, was a reference to a promotion which they had last run three years previously and were now running again in response to improved conditions in the housing market which had seen properties going under offer within three to four weeks.

Clarets said the editorial and another ad in the same publication were the first mentions of the offer to the general public since reintroducing it. They said the offer therefore only applied to properties that they had taken on to the market from the beginning of March and for which the owners chose to take them up on the offer.

They said they offered the four-week promotion to customers who instructed them on a 1.25% commission basis for the first four weeks. If the property was not firmly under offer within that time the fee was halved when the property did finally go under offer. They said they also offered a flat rate of 1% from the outset if owners preferred not to take up the promotional offer.

Clarets provided on a confidential basis the figures for the number of properties on which they had been instructed and the number which were under offer. They said the owners of those which weren’t under offer had decided to take advantage of the reduced commission instead or were still within the initial four weeks.

Clarets said the claim was purely their opinion based on their income relative to the same period in 2010. They provided the relevant figures on a confidential basis and believed that they showed that the market was starting to improve.

The ASA, however, upheld all the complaints.

It considered the claim that Clarets had sold “thousands of properties in Bushey over the years” was a claim capable of substantiation if sales data showed that Clarets had completed sales on thousands of properties. The ASA said: “We noted that, while Clarets had provided the figure for the number of properties sold, we had not seen evidence to support that. In any case, we noted that the figure fell short of showing that they had sold ‘thousands’ of properties. We therefore concluded that the claim was misleading.”

The ASA also considered that the claim about advertising more widely than any of their competitors needed to be substantiated with data documenting all the marketing activities by Clarets and their competitors.

The ASA said that although Clarets had submitted examples of their own advertising which showed they did advertise extensively, the ASA had not seen evidence that they advertised more than their competitors.

The complaint about the claim that Clarets believed that they could have vendors’ homes under offer in four weeks was also upheld.

The ASA said this was really a sales promotion, but that with no start or finish date or information about the terms and conditions of the promotion, most people would see it as a claim that Clarets managed to get all of the properties on their books under offer within four weeks.

The fourth complaint, about the local market improving “contrary to some reports”, was  also upheld. The ASA said it had not seen data to support the claim.

The advertorial must not appear again in its current form. The ASA has also told Clarets to ensure that they held robust substantiation for their claims, to make promotional offers clear and to differentiate clearly between expressions of opinion and objective claims.

The last time EAT reported on this feud was on January 14. Aficionados and self-harmers can find the story here:

https://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/oldeat_news_features/Bitter-rivalry-between-two-local-agents-spills-over-a-second-time

Comments

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    It's this kind of marketing and subsequent bad press that does our industry no favours. Clearly they're as bad as each other but they hurt us all with their smoke and mirrors approach to business.

    • 17 October 2011 16:56 PM
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    It is just piss poor that the governing body are nowhere to be seen in disputes like this. It should not be necessary to involve any regulator outside NFOPP

    "Ooooooooow! we don't like to take sides in Agent disputes"

    Their lack of clout or action in any issue involving two agents simply serves to condone bad practice.


    3,2, 1 cue the PBK arse licker who thinks PBK is great and does a fantastic job.

    • 17 October 2011 08:35 AM
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    When are we going to get the next episode of the D & G video 'cause this needs airing soon!

    • 15 October 2011 20:59 PM
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    Love it.

    Made me smile on a nice sunny Friday morning!

    • 14 October 2011 09:40 AM
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    LOL Reptile

    • 14 October 2011 09:27 AM
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    Lifted from their web site this morning: ''We advertise in more local publications than any other local estate agent including the Watford Observer and Harrow Times. This advertising also includes all the major web based search engines such as Rightmove, Fish4homes, Find A Property, Prime Location to name a few. These are in addition to Clarets own website and online services.'' Mmmm!!

    • 14 October 2011 09:26 AM
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