Savills, one of the largest estate agents in Europe, has been forced to apologise to a client for the activities of a ‘rogue employee’ and come to an out-of-court settlement with one of its clients according to a Citywire report. At the heart of it is the sale of a house for somewhere in the region of £7 million less than it was worth.Barry McKay had been told his home was worth £2.9 million, but what he did not know was that he was being misled over who was buying the property and what the reasons were behind it.
The rogue employee Michael Ball, who ran the company’s Sunningdale office, had made arrangements to sell the property to a Mr John Morris. This was a property developer that Mr McKay had had previous dealings with and did not want to sell the house to. Mr Morris had development plans for the property and then gained planning permission that made the property worth several times the value Mr McKay was misled into accepting.
Mr McKay brought legal action, Mr Ball left Savills and Savills has been left with the bill.
In a joint statement McKay and Savills lay the blame firmly at the door of Mr Ball.
This case amazes me. What did Mr Ball hope to gain by selling the property cheaply? He was presumably working for the seller on a percentage commission basis. So the more he got for it the more money he would earn. There is no indication in the report of any collusion between Mr Ball and Mr Morris, but it would be interesting to see if this case was taken any further and in what direction it went.
The moral of the story is to get at least three valuations from reputable agents.
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Tags: fraud, house price news, House Prices, News, Savills
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And Gordon Brown replied
Keeping people in poverty