Worried – and in some cases, frantic and heartbroken – sellers whose properties were listed with House Network have been in contact with EYE, tracking us down online as apparently the only media that has been reporting events.
Meanwhile, the administrators have said they are having to take legal advice.
The first these consumers knew about House Network’s decision to stop trading was a notice on its website, advising them to contact the administrators.
But the notice did not give details as to who the administrators are, or give any contact information.
Universal Acquisitions Limited (UAL) supposedly bought House Network out of administration at the end of March but went on to lay off staff and then, last week, said it had ceased trading.
EYE was able to advise the vendors who have contacted us that the original administrators were Hudson Weir. We were also able to supply individual email addresses.
However, the whole affair looks to be a complete mess, with UAL apparently buying ongoing contracts, and the administrators now having to take legal advice.
One seller told us of her anxiety that her home was no longer on Rightmove or Zoopla just as the busy Easter viewings weekend was getting under way.
Another needed offers negotiated. A third simply spoke of frustration at having lost money, with the property in question no longer being marketed.
Typically, one vendor said that they would now have to make a similar outlay on a different agent. We told them that a traditional agent would not charge them until the property sold. They said that would cost them £4,000, but we suggested that a ‘no sale, no fee’ agent might be able to get them a higher price.
Heartbreakingly in yet another instance, a recent widow told us how she paid upfront six months ago, how selling the home she had shared with her husband was a big deal, and how she thought she was being canny in using an online agent.
She added that losing money was bad news, but it needed to be put into perspective compared with losing her husband.
Amounts paid upfront to House Network appear to be anywhere from around £500 to almost £1,000.
As we have said, House Network was apparently bought out of administration by UAL at the end of March. A bullish statement swiftly followed as to the new owners’ plans, but staff were then laid off before an announcement that House Network had stopped trading. All this was in a timescale of little over a fortnight.
We have asked Ziggy Seagroatt, said to be the only shareholder in UAL, as to advice EYE can usefully pass on to vendors. As yet we have not had any reply.
However, an email sent out to vendors just before the Easter weekend from the administrators reads:
Dear Sir/ Madam
House Network Limited – In Administration (“the Company”)
“Please accept this e-mail as confirmation that House Network Limited is in administration and Michelle Mills of Hudson Weir was appointed as administrator on 29 March 2019. The business of the Company including ongoing contracts was sold to Universal Acquisitions Limited (“UAL”) on the same day. Please find attached a copy of the certificate of appointment for ease of reference.
It is our understanding that you entered into a contract with the Company and paid a fee prior to 29 March 2019. If this is correct it may be that you have a claim in the administration. However, as UAL acquired the Company’s ongoing contracts, we are seeking legal advice regarding this position. Until legal advice is obtained, we are unable to clarify the position however, in the interim, we would appreciate if you would provide answers to the following queries:
- When did you sign an agreement with House Network?
- How much did you to pay to House Network Limited?
- When did you make this payment?
- If you did not make a payment to House Network, did you take out a loan agreement with Shawbrook?
- If so, what is the value of the loan?
- When is the loan due to be repaid?
- Are you selling or renting a property through House Network?
- Has a sale been agreed and are you waiting for information/confirmation from house network to complete the sale?
“We look forward to hearing from you and would advise that any further updates will be provided in the week following the Easter Bank Holiday.”
Comments (26)
The next time you visit a property to do a “valuation” (OR MARKET APPRAISAL) just ask before you start looking around one simple question:
Are you looking for a full service estate agent or a low cost service?
If the answer is the low cost version then turn on your heals and walk out the door because they don’t value your business. Obviously leave your business card and ask them to call you when their low cost option fails them completely as it most likely will and be charming and friendly. DO NOT VALUE THE PROPERTY, not because the owner hasn’t got a clue to it’s value, it was never about the value.
I love MrTickle’s post! There are 2 sides to every coin, and it is sad when agents moan on here about the onliners.
I am still a devoted ‘old school’er, but will never instruct just one agent. Why? Because I just can’t shake the mistrust of old.
I went to view a good priced repo last week. Within 5 mins, the agent told me there were legal problems because the freeholder was missing. Then a few mins later he said there were hefty s20 bills in the near future. When I asked him how that was possible if the freeholder was missing, he said someone had recently bought the freehold (but surely not within the time we’d been talking!). He pointed out the damp in the flat and the cracked ceiling and told me he thought the flat was dangerous. I simply thanked him, went to my next, albeit pricier viewing, made an offer and that is now going through.
This first agent was an agent who for whatever motivation, was working with a buyer known to him (no doubt in my mind). The game – to put everyone off until the mortgagee in possession lowered the price even further, and/or the buyer could exchange without competition. It is practices like this that turn people off traditional estate agents, never mind the onliners. Everyone, not just the online brigade have caused the bad fortunes of traditional agents. Unfortunately, there were too many bad apples, and not all of them have gone away!
A good agent is worth his/her weight in gold, but if you only buy/sell c. 3 times in your life, how would you identify one? Also, if all you are surrounded with, is Betty saying what hubby says he won’t let her say, and that they are selling more than ‘top 10 agents’, why would you consider an old school agent?
Traditional agents need to set up a body and start advertising to counter PB if they feel strongly enough about it. PB is gaining ground and trust with every advert, whilst saying on here that PB is wrong is simply preaching to the converted.
Buy cheap, buy twice.
mrtickle makes valid points.
Look at the online page of this mob, housesimple, PB, YOPA and any other ‘Listing’ firm. They give the impression they have a like for like service (if not better) for a fraction of the cost.
ASA, Property ombudsman, trading standards are letting the public down,
Until they are held to account it will continue.
What other industry will make you pay circa a thousand pounds with only a 50% chance of a product / service?
The crux of it. You cant make a service industry a retail industry, even though they may be elements of order taking in a service industry.
I think the comments attacking the vendors are misplaced.
Yes, do your research. Yes, ask why it is so much cheaper than going old-school.
But… people move houses maybe 3 times during their lives, they needn’t be swotting up on the latest housing market news on a daily or monthly basis – in exactly the same way as I don’t need to research the airline industry when I only take a flight once every 10 years.
No, the problem here is the businesses themselves. They make what looked like an intriguing offer to customers, and customers take it on good faith that the company has their best interests in mind.
Unfortunately, startups like these do not care about their customers.
They have to focus so much time and energy on market share and momentum that the customer becomes secondary to “getting the next customer”, and so on and so on until the company has market share at the expense of customer trust.
My advice to anybody selling their home is this: do not use an online agent until at least one of them is profitable.
The moment customer satisfaction and transparency trumps the need to simply “grow”, the entire online sector will change for the better.
Until then, avoid onliners like the plague. They are no good to you, your house or your bank account, even if they may seem so.
Meanwhile, my personal opinion is this: you need about a 100% chance of selling your home with your chosen agent. If you are willing to put your property into the hands of a flip of a coin, then you will lose.
House Network and Emoov, to fail in such quick succession with such disastrous results, prove that this model is not yet ready to be brought to market.
Every stakeholder in these kinds of businesses: founders, investors, employees and customers, are taking a huge risk with their time and money, and they should not stand for it.
This entire hybridisation and online-ification of the real estate sector is going nowhere fast, and it needs a serious rethink. And if the answers aren’t visible in this long comment of mine, then you are blinkered beyond redemption.
Meanwhile, a very big thanks to EYE for giving press to this issue. It is a necessary and noble cause, and I just wish the mainstream would follow your example.
Rant over, and have a great day everyone 🙂
One of the most sensible and factually on-point comments posted on EYE to date.
Nice one, mrtickle.
Its a very salient point about people who rarely if ever sell property not being up to date with all the twists and turns of estate agency and property selling.
Trouble is, I was always taught to concentrate on telling people what we do, not to ‘slag off’ opposition. Dilemma then as to whether to give advise about the perils of online listing agents.
LocalLens
The issue is always the same – whether ‘traditional’ or ‘online’; Independent or Corporate (or any of the models in between); NSNF or NSPR – that all Agents lay claim to be ‘the one to use’ to homeowners… and that homeowners should reasonably expect all Agents to offer a service that at the very least gets the job done that they have been commissioned (there’s that all-important word for the first time) to do.
What is now more apparent than ever to those that are on the coalface or close to it is that this has never been more relevant… but less evident… and (apologies in advance to old-time poster ‘Sh!tty Analogy Police’ who I’m sure is still reading EYE…) the gulf between the good and bad is now wide enough to accommodate a raging sea rather than the babbling brook there once was.
There are statistics somewhere that claim to tell what percentage of potential homesellers have only one Agent out; or two, three – or sometimes even a dozen. Those Agents have one go at winning the business – and if an Agent is invited to appraise a property they are highly unlikely to tell the owner that there are Agents who are ‘better’ than them for the job even though they absolutely know that to be the reality.
Homeowners make decisions based on what they see… what they hear… and what they feel. If the person they meet ticks their boxes then they are highly likely to get the job for their Agency… whether ‘they’ – and we all know that many listers have nothing whatsoever to do with the marketing and selling process whatsoever – are up to it or not.
It is unprofessional to ‘knock the competition’ – even if the competition are knocking you publicly on TV… radio… online… even on the backs of buses, in trains and cabs and on mahoosive billboards. But to be professional and to act in the best interests of the customer surely you must advise that not all Agents are equal and that choosing the wrong Agent could have costly consequences – and that the costs may not be purely financial. That is fact.
As long as your reasoning for trusting the sale of their home to yourself is fair, honest and most importantly substantiated, then you are acting in the homeowners’ best interests… and therefore doing the job of a good Estate Agent.
Thank you for taking the time to reply at length, and I very much concur with what you say.
Dont “Slag off” do however point out and explain differences.
“Homeowners make decisions based on what they see… what they hear… and what they feel.” Really? How about: homeowners make decisions on the highest valuation and the lowest fee? Purple bricks are testement to this. Pay upfront before the job is done? That’s how stupid homeowners can be.
TOZ4
Yes – really. And your scenario is 100% proof of it.
Homeowner hears the highest valuation… sees the lowest fee… and feels justified to instruct the Agent that served up the plate of ******** for them.
It has been that way since long before NSPR Agents came on the scene. There has always been a bargain fee Agent in var nigh every town or village. There has always been one that told people what they wanted to hear.
Nothing has changed in that respect – except perhaps where that agent is based.
I’m sorry but calling homeowners stupid does nobody any favours in our industry.
The same ‘homeowners’ you refer to put fuel in our cars; food on our plates and rooves over our heads.
We need to accept that some of them make decisions that do not benefit us – and may turn out to not benefit them either – but nevertheless they make the call.
“ she thought she was being canny in using an online agent.”
Pay peanuts, get monkeys.
Purplebricks is next; that really will be a scandal to hit the national papers.
Whilst I 100% agree, I felt a tug at my heart strings on this one. Dependent on the age of the widow in question, she may not be particularly tech-savvie or aware of the pitfalls of using an online agent and may have been lured into the ‘cheap’ rate.
Coupled with potential vulnerability issues off the back of losing her husband, I can’t help but feel for her.
I wonder what their game is….are they looking to get shot of all the debt or is there a more interesting matter unfolding.
It is a shame that this story doesnt make the national press but as most people have never heard of House Network i presume that the MSM feel that no one is interested. I do have some sympathy with those that have lost money but as when paying money for anything, a little research is needed…..these companies are cheap for a reason.
Doesn’t suit the mainstream press who have been banging the drum about how much you can save by using an online agent. No suprise it’s not news, it just doesn’t fit with the narrative
Bit like Brexit..!
Research was done. House Network’s problems just didn’t show anywhere but here.
You get what you pay for. If I bought a Rolex for a fiver in the market and ‘shock horror’, it turned out to be fake, I’m not sure I’d get a lot of sympathy?
Bless them all, for i expect not one little part of them thought about killing local jobs and taking the money out of the local economy..
bless them again .. and again.
Some of us did do our research actually. Some of us took recommendations from friends, looked at reviews, read a numerous articles. It doesn’t make us idiots, just because we don’t spend our lives crawling around the only website that actually mentioned House Network had issues. Even now it’s not mentioned anywhere but here unlike Emoov, Tepilo and Purple Bricks have all had widely reported problems. We are not ‘killing jobs or taking from the local economy’. Maybe if ‘local’ estate agents weren’t so full of BS, people wouldn’t have looked at other options.
Who are you trying to kid?! Its all about trying to do it on the cheap.
Constructive comment troll
Dear 2019Green
What you say about agents being full of BS
Sometimes True
But they are still there, working hard for their clients and working on a no sale, no fee basis. BS or no if you had used a local agent you wouldn’t be out of pocket, now would you?
Actually I’ve just been told I don’t have to pay the money. So I’m not out of pocket now. Plus I imagine the people who do the day to day at House Network we’re working pretty hard too, hence the positive reviews and recommendations I received.