Devil is in the agent’s detail

Beware exaggerations in those ‘for sale’ brochures

EARLY summer is a favourite time to consider moving house, but this year things are different. The combination of a growing number of new online estate agents and tumbling house sales is creating desperation among those in home sales, including developers. unfortunately, in their desire to sell, some will stretch the elasticity of truth to its limits. London’s less reputable estate agents have long been guilty of blurring the city’s postcodes to make a streeteet sound more desirable, claiming a road in, say, Stockwell is in North Clapham. It is happening further afield, too, not least in leafy Surrey.

John McGuinn, from Redhill, wants to buy a small family home with his girlfriend. ‘ We are looking to buy within ten miles of Redhill,’ says McGuinn, 28, who has lived in this part of Surrey all his life.

‘So we went into a site office of a new development near Horley and the sales woman told us that I was, actually, in Reigate.

‘I pointed out that this was a RH6 postcode, clearly that for Horley — not Reigate, which is RH2. She wouldn’t have it. So I walked out.’

That sales woman’s error almost certainly had nothing to do with hazy mapreading skills. Rather, her superiors wanted to re-position the development in Reigate to justify selling at Reigate prices (average sale price £537,022 last year according to Rightmove) not those of Horley ( average sales price £370,604).

A favourite trick of some suburban estate agents is to ‘countrify’ their home patch. So an unpretentious local inn (cheesy chips a speciality) becomes a ‘gastro-pub’, the acres of rough scrubland around a housing estate becomes a ‘countryside park,’ small houses are ‘cottages’ and anonymous collections of streets are ‘villages’. McGuinn has again experienced this.

‘We went to look at a house in Lesbourne Road, Reigate,’ he says. ‘It was a pleasant road that I know quite well with shops and amenities, but when the sales people told me it was Lesbourne Village I nearly fainted. It wasn’t and never had been a village. They just made it up.’ Once inside the house, some estate agents let their imaginations run wild.

Stories abound of ‘galley kitchens’ with hardly room to boil a kettle. ‘Kitchen/ family rooms’ are kitchens with televisions; ‘kitchen/ dining rooms’ are kitchens with tables.

For ‘bijou’ and ‘cosy’ read minuscule and ‘a low maintenance garden’ is likely to be a concrete yard.

Some examples of tampering with the truth are not so funny. Prospective buyers have to plan space for their families and they need to know if a bedroom is a double or a single.

Yet research from the insurance company Direct Line revealed last year that 48 per cent of homes up for sale had at least one bedroom that had been advertised incorrectly.

And 36 per cent of adverts are offering single rooms which are too small for anyone aged over ten to sleep in.

As the buyer, you have several avenues of complaint if you believe an estate agent has misled you. Members of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) are bound by strict rules and can take disciplinary action on your behalf if you have grounds for complaint.

All estate agents must also belong to an ombudsman scheme so complaints can be resolved quickly.

COUNTRY estate agents are often equally adept at over-varnishing the truth.

‘I recently viewed a house described as a “wonderful renovation project in a tranquil location” which turned out to be in the middle of five fields full of inquisitive cows with no vehicular access,’ says Carol Peett, a search agent with West Wales Property Finders who makes it her business to decipher the truth from the puff in sales particulars. ‘My advice if you are looking in the countryside is to check an area on Google Earth if you don’t know it before visiting. Quiz the agent thoroughly on the location before booking a viewing.

‘ For online agents, complete the message box asking for the precise location of the house and ask whether there are any commercial premises nearby. Particularly look out for pig farms, a railway line or noisy pub.

‘And be firm — saying that you will not confirm a viewing until your queries have been answered.’

FRED REDWOOD