AVOID. Unprofessional, untrustworthy and not transparent. Complained to the Ombudsman
AVOID. Unprofessional, untrustworthy and not transparent. Complained to the Ombudsman.
In our experience the worst estate agent in Caversham by a long shot. We have bought and sold houses before, but never worked with one that was this unprofessional. Out of the 4 people we dealt with, only one of them was decent (V). We were selling a property with another estate agent and trying to buy one via Bridges. We felt that we were lied to, and that all along they acted in their own interests and not in their clients’ interests. We felt that they engineered situations so that they benefited by prioritising offers from sellers on their books, and did not present all offers in an fair and transparent way.
Our chain did fall down a couple of times but was re-established quickly each time, and Bridges were kept in the loop. In the end we were swapped out in favour of one of the sellers on their books despite our chain being closed again. We believe Bridges presented the information to the upper chain in a way that ultimately led them to go with the other buyers. This resulted the two properties at the top of the chain that Bridges were selling dropping their prices to accommodate the offer from the other buyer. Our offer was higher we had a closed chain and had invested time and money in that purchase as were already 2-3 months into a purchase.
We were so shocked by the behaviour of Bridges that we went to the ombudsman. In the end the ombudsman was not able to rule in our favour and this was in part due to the lack of paper records kept by Bridges. It seems that integrity and professionalism are not a prerequisite for being a good estate agent anymore. We felt it was important to raise the issues we had with Bridges to the ombudsman and we would encourage anyone else to do the same. There are some other online reviews of Bridges that sound all too familiar to us and our situation. In a small place such a Caversham word of mouth is important, and Bridges cannot keep on treating people in this way. Andy was rude, aggressive, and patronising and acted without integrity throughout; he lied to our face; he criticised all of the other agents in Caversham; and his reputation of ‘always chasing the money’ precedes him.
No doubt Andy will contest what we have said here, but we know what happened. If anyone has had a similar or worse experience then please get in touch as we are still liaising with the ombudsman.