Purplebricks’ chief legal officer has resigned from the company.
The online estate agency informs EYE that the group general counsel of the business, Steve Thompson, has today handed in his notice to leave the firm.
The online estate agency told EYE: “Our general counsel, Steve Thompson, has decided to leave Purplebricks after almost two years in the role. We’d like to thank Steve for all his work and support across many projects and wish him all the best for the future.”
It is not clear why he has decided to quit the company – Purplebricks declined to comment further.
It is also not known at this stage who will replace Thompson in the senior role.
Thompson, who joined Purplebricks in March 2020, previously worked as group general counsel for Virgin Trains, and prior to that role he was director of legal and procurement at Europcar.
His resignation follows a rather turbulent period for the online estate agency, caused in part by regulatory failings.
EYE revealed in November that Purplebricks had failed to properly serve legally required documents to tenants explaining their deposits have been put into a national protection scheme.
The agency accepts that there could be future claims against the firm, and provisionally estimates a potential financial risk of almost £4m.
Purplebricks was forced last month to delay the publication of its first half results to provide for any potential future claims which could arise under the Housing Act in relation to this regulatory process issue. Those results were only released this morning – see below.
The decision to delay publication of the first half year results followed speculation that the online estate agency could potentially face a bill of up to £30m after it allegedly put thousands of landlords at risk of being because it failed to follow basic tenancy law.
Purplebricks, which this morning reported that recent trading conditions have been “challenging”, is currently being investigated by Propertymark for potential tenancy law breaches.
The firm’s share price stands at a near record low of just over 20 pence at the moment.
Purplebricks says outlook ‘remains uncertain’ following ‘challenging’ market
Comments (3)
In fairness to Mr Thompson, aSalesAgent, I believe the issues you refer to were there long before he took the position he was employed to fill.
Let us not forget that the founder and original CEO of Purplebricks is, amongst other things, a lawyer.
If you’re looking for somewhere to park that buck that’s being frantically passed around…
Rats & sinking ships come to mind! When will they realise you can’t industrialise selling property.Overpaid executives with no Estate Agency experience will always be a recipe for disaster.and the flawed Bruce brother’s on-line ‘commissery’ legacy is finally coming home to roost. What a Bloomin surprise!
Rather than PB’s failure to register deposits (which I believe was due to an IT issue rather that Steve Thompson’s ill advice), I expect the real reason he has departed is because of the legal action from Contractors for Justice (C4J).
https://propertyindustryeye.com/purplebricks-faces-legal-action-from-agents-over-holiday-and-pension-pay/
PB said in October: “We have always taken legal advice in regards to our licensing model – and the advice is very clear that these individuals were operating as limited companies, running their own business and with full control over their own staff.”