|
About Us Buying and selling property is a 'people business'. There is a lot of help available when selecting the right firm to buy, sell or let your home - estate agents spend millions on their profile to attract new business. But what about the staff who will actually deal with your instructions? Who are they and how qualified are they? What organisations do they belong to and what sort of properties do they deal with? There is no requirement for an agent to belong to any trade body or profession but those who do can justify higher fees. In addition, many provide forms of redress should things go wrong.
Use this site to check out the individuals as well as the firms who want your business. See who is qualified, who is not, what experience they have and in time, what their previous clients thought of them. Use this site to make an informed choice. Like many professions, the actions of a minority determine the public perception of the majority. Whilst there are two principle ‘trade’ bodies, the RICS and NAEA, membership is not compulsory. The excellent Ombudsman for Estate Agents is also voluntary at present and covers firms rather than individuals. A Bill requiring agents to belong to a recognised Ombudsman scheme is currently before parliament. The vast majority of agents are highly professional and work diligently on their clients behalf. If your agent provided the service you expected or better still, exceeded your expectations, then leave your feedback here and others can benefit from it. This is not a site to slander or to rant if things haven’t gone your way but until the Government decide to licence all agents, the Register of Estate Agents exists to provide some confidence in an oft maligned group of people who by and large help in one of the most stressful areas of anyone's life - the move from one home to another. Remember, the majority of the 1 million plus house sales in the UK go smoothly each year because the agent does his or her job. When things do go wrong it is usually because people forget that they are agents - that they represent only one party, be that vendor, landlord or buyer and whilst they will do all they can to be helpful, they are NOT a broker acting as a middle-man. They get paid to help their client. If you are unsure what this means, engage your own agent to help you buy, rent or sell. The fee they will charge comes out of the deal and best of all, most work on a "performance only" basis so if they don’t do the job they don’t get paid! This site is designed to allow agents involved in buying, selling or renting property to post details about themselves to help explain to prospective clients who they are and what they do. Users of the site can find a brief c.v. and learn a little more about their potential agent. Employers can also see more about prospective employees. As you will see in the Forum, the founder of Winkworths estate agents in London, Simon Agaces, argued for a Register of agents to be set up to help employers avoid rogue ndividuals whom they would not wish to employ. So there are different reasons for using this site. To help the public learn more about the agents they might instruct and also to help good agents get better jobs working for better firms. We have also included offices and welcome more to sign up. The site is FREE for all users and there is a modest cost to members agents on the site. If you can't find who you are looking for, do please encourage that agent to sign up. For press enquires please contact Benjamin Webb at Deliberate PR benjamin@deliberate-pr.com 020 8732 8867 RoEA Limited, 65 New Cavendish Street, London. W1G 7KS. Tel;- 020 7193 1599. Company Reg Nº 6020359. Data Protection Reg Nº Z9815864.
 |
