Samuel S.

It is important to emphasize that:
I'm not a standard client but I'm an experienced landlord that had a letting business in central London for 15+ years.

I've trusted purplebricks to sell 3 properties in central London since 2021.

The property market in London is different from other parts of the uk. If a property is nice it sells pretty quickly. You just need to arrange the viewings with the potential buyers, show up at the appointments and be professional.

On 3 properties that have been given to purple bricks, I've managed to sell the first one in 2022 because I was still living in central London, so I was personally replying to all the enquires, doing the viewings, doing the follow ups, negotiating the price, etc.

In 2022 I moved out of London so I've met with few Purplebricks agents that have promised me that they'll carry out the viewings professionally and that I won't have to be worried about anything.

I paid the extra service of the viewings, I gave my keys to their "professional" agent and hoped for the best.

Unfortunately things went down pretty quickly for the following reasons:
- the person doing the viewings was leaving purplebricks within a couple of months, so everytime a new person was in charge of viewings without knowing the property
- my direct contact in purplebricks was constantly changing, so again everytime I had to go over again in explaining all the information about the property
- after 2 months they lost 1 set of keys. I had to replace the lock and make new copies. I opened an official complaint and only after 6 months and several emails, phone calls, threats, etc. I received some compensation for it (worthless comparing the time that I've wasted on it).
- Purplebricks went almost bankrupt and was sold for £1 on the 17th of May 2023. From that point the restructured completely the company and haven't been able to carry out a single viewings in both properties.
- both set of keys of my property have been lost
- my complaints are not answered
- my emails are ignored
- the agent that promised me to look after my property refuses to answer my email

On top of that I spoke several time with purplebricks employees that clearly have never been in London or had any experience in properties but still wanted to give me advice about my property.

The best advice was to try to sell it for 25% less of it is original value.

I declined the offer politely. Instructed another local estate agent and received an offer for my asking in price within 3 weeks.

The local estate agent managed to do what purplebricks haven't been able to do in 2 years in 3 weeks. (the properties are in zone 2 in central London, so they sell fast)

The financial damage that I've received is incredible because during this time the interest rate went up.

If I had instructed a local estate agent I would have sold the properties before for a higher price, saved a lot of time and I won't be here writing this review.

So, if you are thinking to instruct Purplebricks because you want to save some money on the agency fees, think twenty times before doing so.

Now I've to go through the ombudsman and solicitors to recover my money and this mean wasting more time however I do believe that it is important that people are aware of what purplebricks works.