Errant ‘to let’ sign moves Kate, 71, To anger

A WOMAN was left fuming after finding a “to let” sign was mistakenly placed in front of her property.

Kate Wale, 71, from Aylestone, discovered the notice on March 31 after she spotted someone peering through her front window.

She said: “At 6.45pm I was horrified when a random person walking past came and looked into my front window, after seeing the to let sign.

“This was the first time I realised an unauthorised sign had been placed on my property.”

Fearing it was part of an April Fool’s joke, she rang Knightsbridge Estate Agents in Clarendon Park the next day, which confirmed that unfortunately a mistake had been made.

However, Kate was not happy with their response and sought compensation.

She claims she was not taken seriously when she phoned.

She said: “I couldn’t believe the man’s flippant attitude. He laughed when I told him how upset I was with this invasion of my property and privacy.”

Knightsbridge has taken responsibility for the blunder, saying the sign should have gone up at the house next door.

The estate agents use a third party board company which is provided with a list of properties and erects the signs accordingly.

Kirsty Greatrex, a spokesperson for Knightsbridge, said: “Ms Wale contacted us to complain about the sign on her property.

“We apologised to her and explained that it was a genuine mistake.

“A typo was made because the numbers of the houses are next to each other on the keyboard.

“Within one hour the sign was taken down and moved to the correct address.”

But Ms Wale says she was left feeling vulnerable after what she sees as an “invasion of her privacy”.

She added: “It left me feeling very worried that this invasion of privacy can happen to any person and property and not taken

seriously at all. I really did think it was a malicious prank.”

She proceeded to ask the company for compensation, which was denied.

Kirsty said: “We do not offer compensation for such a commonplace mistake.

“We rectified the issue as soon as we possibly could and sincerely apologised to the resident.”

Ms Wale says the response was not good enough and needs to be looked into, adding: “I think the total lack of empathy, duty of care and customer service shown by Knightsbridge needs to be highlighted and addressed.”