A new property portal that has launched, naming a number of estate agency ‘partners’ that are supposed to support it, has received a legal letter telling it in no uncertain terms to remove one of the claims.
At launch yesterday, PropertyHeads said it had nearly 500,000 homes listed across the UK to buy and rent.
It also named a number of agents as its ‘partners’, using their logos – including Martin & Co, Purplebricks, Andrews, Dexters, Emoov, Foxtons, Winkworth, Yopa and Your Move.
It said that its partnership with so many leading agents guaranteed its success.
But yesterday evening, it received a furious legal letter from Martin & Co, saying: “You do not hold a licence with us to use this trademark nor are we an estate agency partner of yours. You are therefore infringing our intellectual property rights and misrepresenting us which we take extremely seriously
“In due course our litigation solicitors will send you undertakings that we require you to sign. In the meantime, please take this email as notice to remove our trademarks and any reference to us as being a partner of yours from any media and/or literature and/or other material in use within your business within the next seven days.”
It is understood some of the other agents named as partners may also not be happy.
PropertyHeads seems to have come quickly to market, after being being incorporated only in January.
Its founder, Ben Davis, is not an estate agent but has a background in fund management. He has also been a fund analyst for insurance and pension companies wanting to invest in property.
Asked by EYE how agents and consumers are going to hear about the new portal, a spokesperson said that agents will be targeted directly by the business development team, alongside PR and a marketing campaign.
A consumer campaign “will follow shortly”, said the spokesperson. She added: “The campaign will consist of above and below the line marketing and PR. Agents will also be able to invite their contacts.”
She said that the site will be monetised through property-related advertising.
We asked where PropertyHeads had got its inventory from and were told that it came through data companies and also from contacting agents directly.
The new portal is offering a new ‘Deal Groups’ tool, described as a secure online forum, enabling estate agents to invite all parties involved in a property transaction to coordinate communication.
Davis said: “We are delighted to be launching PropertyHeads.com in partnership with so many leading estate agents.
“Our mutual partnership with estate agents will essentially underpin our success which is why we will always offer free property listings.
“However, we are much more than a property listing portal: consumers will be using our site to find tradesmen and property services and save money using our price comparison tool, all whilst building their social network.
“These added services will help drive the consumers to the portal.
“In addition, we offer innovative tools for the professionals which will help improve the home-buying process.
“There is a great appetite for an all-encompassing interactive service to aid the home-buying process and we have been hugely encouraged by the response to our exciting venture.”
Below, a screengrab yesterday of PropertyHeads’ home page, showing some of the agents described as ‘partners’
Comments (5)
Mmm this portal looks like it has scraped all our properties as we never gave our consent! I hope Martin & Co got somewhere with this?
Was still there this morning – but I note that the “Partners” banner has now been removed.
Just need the rest of this woeful semi-effort to go the same way now…
I’m sure Pistonheads will be thrilled too.
So their PR is effective then…launch and get a legal threat…well done Ben Davis! Go for it Martin & Co and the other partner agents, these chancers deserve everything that’s coming and it shouldn’t be done off your labours!.
They won’t last, launching with a ‘Press release to follow soon’ and an APP that isn’t even designed shows the quality of this offering. City bot reads the headlines about virtual agents and jumps on the bandwagon…after it has left! 🙂 And they are from Essex…..Screen grabbing is not a way to build a business…next! Financial intermediary is the main job…claim they have been in existence for 2 decades, but companies house shows incorporation in 2015. They must be affiliates!
Bastards have pinched a load of our instructions to populate their dreadful site!