Illegal conditional selling across their SE London branches. To sellers thinking of listing with Barnard Marcus I would recommend you do not.They will likely advertise the fact that they can offer buyers a full in-house service, covering mortgage brokerage and conveyancing services and that this ensures transparency, commitment and progress through the process however in recent experience of buying a property sold through this branch this is a loose term that results in what I think is illegal "conditional selling".We offered (and subsequently bought and moved in to a house) sold through Barnard Marcus and were put under immense pressure to use their in-house services. Not only is the pressure an extremely negative aspect of an exciting process (to the extent we considered pulling out, clearly not great for sellers and their chains) their in-house services are overly expensive and un-competitive from a financing POV (paying for a mortgage application fee before you've been accepted!!!???), again, giving perfectly valid buyers perfectly valid reasons for pulling out.We managed to progress our offer through Barnard Marcus using our long-term mortgage broker and conveyancing solicitor instead of their in-house services (which is incredible to even write, as as the estate agent, they're legally obliged to do), after a carefully worded email.The sellers were using conveyancing services that were part of the Sequence Group, and during the buying process the claim of transparency, commitment and progress offered by their in-house services completely disappeared with Barnard Marcus offering no transparency and progress, failing to keep to simple commitments and admitting they had little if any control over the conveyancing process, the opposite of what they'd sold as their benefits to the seller and us.To would be buyers, if the house you've found is being sold by Barnard Marcus, I feel for you, be prepared for a rough and expensive ride, or a rough one if you manage to buy from them using your own services. If the house is being sold by multiple estate agents, offer through the other one!I've had the displeasure of dealing with two groups of poor estate agents recently. Foxtons were great however, I'd recommend them.
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