Propertymark has issued a response to the BBC Panorama investigation aired on Monday night, which revealed potentially unethical behaviour at Connells and Purplebricks.
In the episode, titled ‘Undercover Estate Agent‘, reporter Lucy Vallance went undercover for six weeks as a sales negotiator at Connells in Abingdon, and found evidence that the estate agency favours buyers taking out mortgages brokered by the company itself, over the interests of other potential purchasers.
Vallance also spoke with a whistleblower who worked at Purplebricks, where staff were under pressure to sell add-on services and were incentivised by a commission scheme to get sellers to drop their house prices.
EYE’s report on the BBC Panorama exposé involving Purplebricks and Connells prompted a strong reaction from readers, with a notable number of comments shared, and now Propertymark has issued a response following the documentary.
Nathan Emerson, CEO of Propertymark commented: “Agents must provide a full duty of care and ensure impartiality to all participants throughout the entire sales and transactional process. Buyers and sellers must have freedom to choose products and services that meet their needs and preferences.
“It is important that agents display an understanding of the impact of key factors which interact with the buying and selling process. This includes areas such as contract law, conveyancing, and mortgage application processes.
“Agents must adhere to the terms of undertaking full due diligence on all parties such as compliance, anti-money laundering regulations, proof of funds and the ability to purchase. They can offer to introduce services which provide appropriate advice and products, but there must be full transparency and absolutely no conflict of interest.
“Due to continuous progression within many areas of law, the housing sector has far greater levels of consumer protection in place than at any point previously, and these standards are constantly evaluated and evolved to ensure they remain fit for purpose.
“Should anyone feel a service offered to them might fall short on standards – they can raise a case with organisations such as Trading Standards, The Property Ombudsman or the Property Redress Scheme as well as the organisations own internal complaints procedures. In addition, if the agent is a member of a professional body such as Propertymark, they may have additional options for remedy too.”
The laws may be there, but the reality is no one bothers to complain. Most people don’t know where to start or what their rights even are. And even when complaints are made, they’re rarely followed up. The rules might sound good on paper, but in practice they’re not policed or enforced properly. It’s still the Wild West out there for too many buyers and sellers.
And let’s be honest, Propertymark are taking a much weaker line than expected. This was a chance to show real leadership and take a stand against bad practice, but instead we got a polite reminder of the rules—as if they’re actually being followed. Saying people can complain isn’t enough when everyone knows nothing actually happens.
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well said.
PM, are utterly useless. Its like chatgpt has done the reply.
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Connells Group and its 600-strong branch network—spanning over 80 brands—are some of the biggest players in the UK property market. These offices are paid-up members of Propertymark.
So let’s be honest: Propertymark isn’t going to bite the hand that feeds it. They’ve dodged sanctioning members for years and now conveniently pass the buck to the ombudsman. If this isn’t a case for the CMA to investigate market dominance and regulatory capture, what is?
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Not sure you can class 12% market share as market dominance…
The CMA won’t even look until market share is 35% or greater.
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Purple bricks receive about 800 per file they refer to one of their panel law firms….
A law firm that has a sweat shop in India doing most of the work for them…
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what the **** are propertymark going to do, they are not a governing body, they are toothless
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