Don’t trust Richard James
We made an offer on a property being sold by Richard James in early 2025. Our offer was rejected but nothing wrong with that. A few months later Richard James staff phoned us and asked if we were still interested in buying the property. They gave us some ridiculous story about the buyers splitting up and going their separate ways on the day contracts were to be exchanged. We told them we were still interested, our offer was accepted and we were told that the sellers wanted a quick sale because they had bought a property and wanted to move. There is always a delay while a solicitor is instructed, ID and money laundering checks are done, but we progressed as quickly as we could. Our surveyor gave up two days of his holiday to do the survey and produce the report. Richard James staff hassled us for weeks, emailing or phoning most days. On one day they phoned us five times between two junctions on the M5 while we were driving. Then it all went quiet. We heard nothing and we had to pursue them. The story changed again and now the sellers were stuck in legal negotiations about the property they were buying. They had been ready to move supposedly. We signed our copy of the contract and returned it to the solicitors and we transferred them the money. Out of nowhere Richard James staff contacted us and told us we needed to complete in 3 days! Richard James staff wanted to be the agents and the solicitors at the same time. By this time it was late November and we had multiple commitments we could not change including some time out of the UK in Eastern Europe. We agreed to exchange when we were back in the UK with a view to completion in late January. In early December Richard James staff contacted us and informed us that they had sold the house to someone else. Our researches revealed that they had relisted it on the market in November without telling us. We were left thousands of pounds out of pocket due to legal fees, surveyors fees, lost bank interest and fees to other professionals who had viewed the property with us.
Our further researches revealed that Richard James has a habit of ‘sham listing’ properties for one day only when they have already sold them to their contacts without the properties being sold legitimately on the open market.
Companies like Richard James are the reason estate agents are widely held in contempt and not trusted. They are unprofessional and untrustworthy. When we told the story to other agents without naming Richard James all of them said something along the lines of ‘that must have been Richard James’.
We would never use Richard James again for buying or selling. We advise friends and family the same.
Regulation of estate agents in the UK is well overdue. It is time that these unethical practices were outlawed.
One star is a star too many for Richard James