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Lee Blackman MNAEA MARLA

Associate Partner

1390 Profile Views

About Me

I have worked in the residential property market since 2000 covering Ashford, Canterbury, Maidstone, Hythe, Folkestone and surrounding areas.

my expertise in the industry

Residential sales and lettings throughout the south east.

Lee's Recent Activity

Discovering All Agents last year by accident I found I had three rather harsh negative reviews which I asked to be removed having never agreed to be part of their site. One from a buyer who lost out on a property because they offered far under the asking price (which was repeated and they had never actually carried out a transaction with us) and one from a tenant who was upset that we would not arrange his direct debits with utilitiy providers and council. When I finally managed to make contact with the management team at All Agents I was told they could not remove them as it would harm the integrity of the site. Up until yesterday, Purple Bricks had over 100 reviews left on All Agents with a score of around 2/5 and a long, detailed list of scathing criticism and stories of wasted money. I am not anti "online agency" there is a place for it certainly and there are many succes stories but if you are a "proper estate agent" then you should expect to be subject to the same treatment, rules and regulations as everyone else in the industry. For the last few years it has almost been taboo to make criticism of any of the online firms even when the complaints relate to misleading or false advertising and it is only now that the regulators have deemed it suitable to investigate the claims and figures they publish. The flow of informally resolved complaints published of late is evidence of this. Clearly, money talks and if All Agents bow to these threats then they should shut the site down, exactly what PB wants as they have not been able to manage the review content in the same way as they have on Trust Pilot (prompting this weeks statement from TP) and the same reason they closed their FB comments page.

From: Lee Blackman MNAEA MARLA 19 September 2017 09:26 AM

The demand for deposits from buyers is not something we have come across in south east Kent even when there are multiple purchasers for a property. In my opinion it is a good idea in principal but it needs clear regulation to avoid people being taken advantage of. The fact that in 2017 a purchaser (or seller) can withdraw from a transaction without reasonable cause, resulting in financial and emotional distress to the other party is astonishing to me. You can't get out of a telephone contract or gym membership without penalty but you can with the purchase/sale of a property! The lack of willing from the Government to update the laws surrounding residential property transactions is very disappointing. Various commentary in the past has suggested this is partly due to the feeling that by further regulating the buying process it would slow the market down but I would argue the opposite. Taking steps to safeguard both parties from unreasonable withdrawal would give confidence to the process and remove so much unnecessary stress and sleepless nights during the conveyancing. Thinking of the practical aspects, there is of course the issue relating to available cash funds to make deposits with, being that everyone is already stretched so far when finding their deposit and fees in the first place. I do of course appreciate that the article is designed to highlight the undesirable practices of the few.

From: Lee Blackman MNAEA MARLA 06 February 2017 09:40 AM

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