Claims that Foxtons made between 50 and 60 members of its staff redundant towards the end of last year are understood to be wide of the mark.

According to the Guardian, Foxtons had taken on extra staff in the first part of 2014. But it said it cut some 7% of its workforce as the property market in the capital slowed abruptly.

Foxtons chief executive Nic Budden told City analysts at a meeting yesterday following publication of its full-year results: “We saw very significant activity in the market during the first half of 2014.

“We had already used up excess capacity in the business in 2013. We began to recruit for what we thought was a longer-term uplift and as the downturn came we were a little bit overstaffed and we reduced that overstaffing.”

Eye understands that there were no redundancies, but that natural wastage did cut headcount by about 5% last year, when employees who left were not replaced.

Yesterday, a Foxtons spokesperson declined to comment on the Guardian story which claimed there were redundancies.

As reported on Eye yesterday, Foxtons made an average commission of £13,119 on sales.