Property markets throughout the UK have experienced a big increase in the sale of residential investments, but with success often comes a few unwanted guests.
You know the type. Companies that try to feed off the good name of high-profile businesses, operate in the shadows of their hard work and cause confusion to the very customer they pretend to be helping.
I’m referring to those companies that “re-market” and “re-advertise” auction house and estate agents’ properties on their websites, without permission and with details that are no longer current.
It has been a mission of mine, over more than 35 years in the property business, to ensure my company offers excellent customer service and to always work in a way that is honest, decent, true and definitely not misleading.
As president of the National Association of Valuers and Auctioneers, I see it as part of my role to listen to the membership and look to resolve any issues with the trade of buying and selling property that would challenge that perception.
Re-advertising properties that were originally promoted by an auction house or estate agent has visibly grown in the past few years. It is something that is a personal bugbear to which I intend to find a solution.
These parasite companies trawl property sites and re-promote them as a property that they can help a customer to buy – often for a fee. They also try to sign customers up as a client or club member, often for several thousands of pounds, to be sent more details of such properties.
Now, I don’t know how many people fall for this trick, but just a few a month would see these firms potentially earn a tidy sum, even though the information is already in the public domain.
Believe it or not, I was even contacted by one of these companies recently and asked if I could go through the listings on their website to let them know which ones had been sold and which ones were still available. The cheek!
Companies which piggyback off other auction houses’ and estate agents’ hard work cause a number of issues for the industry. Some are specific, such as using copyrighted information (including photos and videos), and others affect the whole industry, as they could potentially portray us all as chancers. This is not good for business, nor is it representative of the highly professional people and companies I work with. So we need to take a stand.
Firstly, listing properties without consent is in my view a breach of trust, and may even be a case for the Office of Fair Trading – particularly where the information is out of date.
As property investors usually browse quite a few websites, they often notice the same property on, say, the Phillip Arnold Auctions site, and a para-site. We then get the call to ask why some of the details for the same investment opportunity differ? The answer is simple – we keep our site up to date! However, in the customer’s mind it’s implied that we are somehow associated with the other company and, as the information held by the third party is often out of date – the price, value, yield or the property is no longer available – the client is confused and misled.
Buying and selling at auction is a transparent, people-to-people business. Companies like this cloud the process by charging a service fee for information that is already in the public domain.
As NAVA president I see industry reputation as paramount, and as far as my colleagues and I can tell, there is no legislation to control this type of re-listing. However, there are a few simple things we can all do in the short term:
• Make sure your own listings are always up to date;
• Add a disclaimer to your marketing collateral that it is copyrighted and cannot be re-used by a third party;
• Put a company logo watermark on your property photographs; and
• Challenge their use and politely ask them to be removed.
NAVA wants to promote the professionalism of its members and will endeavour to find a way to cleanse the industry of this type of enterprise.
