Landlords who agreed tenancies via Purplebricks could be liable for large tenant payouts

No doubt they will still be able to afford a lawyer good enough to ensure they wriggle out of the consequences of their schoolboy error and pass it back to the Landlords.
We actually had Purplebricks round to either sell or rent one of our properties for us back around 2010ish. Luckily for us it now seems they failed – dismally – to do either.
At the time I was horrified that we’d paid them a non-refundable fee to do absolutely nothing and vowed never to use them again. Tbh I did briefly wonder what actual motivation had they to do anything for anyone when they’d already had all of the money they were going to get from you, but anyway now it seems we may have had a narrow escape and got off pretty lightly.

Reply to the comment left by Denise G at 14/12/2021 – 10:42
I used PB to sell our last house and they failed dismally, so I didn’t pay their bill and we ended up going to Court. I got a partial win, but think the part I lost was because the Judge thought they were ‘just’ an advertising site (akin to Zoopla…could’ve even mixed up the purple colours) and they didn’t need to do the viewings that I’d paid for as a separate package and provide, as all their marketing material suggests, a ‘dedicated local property expert’…we got nothing but no-less-than six different agents that only ever stuck around for about two weeks each. I only ever saw one and only spoke to two. The Judge scanned through the contract and came to the conclusion that the *only* obligation to me was to ‘advertise’ and that they’d done by sticking it on their site.

To make matters worse, and in order to bring about the Court case for my unpaid bill to them (only due at the point of sale), they continued to send all Court papers to my old address!! Fortunately the Judge accepted this and disallowed interest.

I paid immediately following the Hearing. Fast forward a few weeks and PB claimed I’d not paid (it turned out their system couldn’t close the account without paying EVERYTHING they’d hoped to get…despite the Judge ruling they’d only get part of what they wanted) and despite sending to the Court a copy of the cheque AND my bank statement showing it’d been cashed, I was required to go to yet another Hearing! Just as the first time around, PB didn’t attend and I once again showed the Judge my evidence I’d already submitted (this time in hard copy) and he agreed I’d paid. I then asked if I could claim for my time having to attend an unnecessary Hearing and he flatly told me ‘No!’ and to basically go away.

Needless to say, my advice would be to avoid PB.

Seems I was wrong, but back then I predicted they wouldn’t last long with their business model which was going to be exposed whenever someone was obliged to cough up hard cash, (even if it was less than other the estate agents charge), for them basically doing nothing … and t.b.h. I am surprised whenever I see a PB board that people are still signing on with them.

Reply to the comment left by Denise G at 15/12/2021 – 11:00
“t.b.h. I am surprised whenever I see a PB board that people are still signing on with them.”

A testimony to the power of TV advertising I suppose.

I have often wondered how they afford this…