Agent in joint agreement with non-Rightmove firm is told he cannot list property

An agent has been banned from listing a property on Rightmove after entering into a joint agreement with another agent who is not on Rightmove.

Steve Morris & Son, in Sutton Coldfield, was told that it had been attempting to re-sell space on Rightmove – something the firm totally rejects, saying this is far from the case.

Steve Morris & Son lists on OnTheMarket and Rightmove, paying the latter over £1,000 a month.

A second agent in the area – whom Steve Morris & Son has asked not to be named – came off Rightmove earlier this year because of the cost, and now lists only on Zoopla.

This agent was asked to carry out a sales valuation at a property, along with some bigger, multi-branch agencies.

The vendor chose to proceed with the independent, whose For Sale board was erected a few days later.

The vendor wanted their property on Rightmove and Steve Morris & Son’s name was put forward by the other agency.

The two agencies had previously worked together when both were on Rightmove, and were happy to collaborate again.

On this occasion both agencies signed a joint agreement with the vendor. The property was listed on Rightmove by Steve Morris & Son, and on Zoopla by the other agent – who, it was agreed with the vendor, would hold the keys and carry out viewings.

However, James Morris of Steve Morris & Son said there was then a turn of events: “It appears that one of the bigger agents in town who carried out a valuation, miffed that they did not get the instruction and having pestered the vendor every day for two weeks, saw the listing on Rightmove under our name.

“A complaint was made to Rightmove.

“Rightmove carried out a ‘mystery shop’ on our listing and as agreed with the vendor, we forwarded the contact details to the other agent for them to arrange the viewing.

“Rightmove contacted us and informed us that we were in breach of our terms and conditions that sharing a listing is not allowed and the property must be removed from Rightmove. Oherwise we would be suspended from any advertising on Rightmove for 28 days.

“We reluctantly removed the advert.

“After explaining the situation to the vendor, we were given a set of keys to carry out viewings.

“We emailed our Rightmove rep of this change and informed him that we would re-listing the property on Rightmove as we believed the issue to have been resolved.

“However, he replied saying we could not do this.”

The rep said that this was because there was “a dual instruction with two estate agents and these are not allowed by one agent advertising it on Rightmove”.

The rep said: “It is a re-selling of the Rightmove service to another agent who has an interest in the property sale.”

James Morris told EYE that the situation was “absurd”: two small local agents had been jointly instructed and were happy to collaborate.

The agent said: “It means no agent can accept instructions from a vendor if they wish to instruct two agents, one of which may not advertise on Rightmove.

“Effectively, Rightmove are pricing out the smaller agents and are now dictating that they cannot work jointly with any other agent who happens to be on Rightmove, potentially killing that business.

“I find this unfair and it surely goes against good business practices when a third party can dictate how successful your business can become.

“This, combined with the crazy membership fee system Rightmove have in place, meaning that one agent could be paying considerably less or more than a similar agent in the same location, is just pure madness.”

A spokesperson for Rightmove told EYE: “Our terms and conditions state that agents cannot re-sell Rightmove services to other agents, so when an agent adds a listing to Rightmove that agent must handle all the enquiries that they receive via Rightmove and they must have the direct relationship with the vendor and be instructed or jointly instructed by them.

“Sellers who instruct a Rightmove agent to list their property can choose to instruct additional agents who are not on Rightmove if they wish to also market their property elsewhere.”

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21 Comments

  1. Chris Wood

    “A spokesperson for Rightmove told EYE: “Our terms and conditions state that agents cannot re-sell Rightmove services to other agents, so when an agent adds a listing to Rightmove that agent must handle all the enquiries that they receive via Rightmove and they must have the direct relationship with the vendor and be instructed or jointly instructed by them.
    “Sellers who instruct a Rightmove agent to list their property can choose to instruct additional agents who are not on Rightmove if they wish to also market their property elsewhere.“

    So, presumably, all individually franchise agents advertising on Rightmove should, as many on here have been arguing, have to have a direct contact number for customers and be listed as a branch and will immediately delist all Purplebricks listings?
    Comment please Rightmove.

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    1. MarkRowe

      Well spotted, Chris.

      Worth sending this article to Rightmove directly for a response do you think? As I can’t imagine you will get a response on here 😉

       

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      1. Chris Wood

        Oh, I think I’ll leave that to Ed’. She’s far more likely to get a response.

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      2. Chris Wood

        Rightmoves arguments:
        1) We use a geographic pricing model for agents with over a set figure of properties within a geographic area outside of their main office area – Counter: This is fine for a single company with employees operating from varying locations across the UK but these are not employees, they are registered at Companies House and are firmly declared as self-employed by Purplebricks PLC itself, HMRC, NAEA Propertymark compliance team, The Property Ombudsman Scheme (TPOS).
        2) We can’t list LPEs’ as they don’t have a physical locationCounter: All LPEs’ are registered at Companies House at a physical location and are (finally) registered with TPOS as individual businesses at a stated location. LPEs’ are self-employed franchisees, the same as Hunters, Northwood, EweMove etc.

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    2. Maxwell73

      I think there may also be an issue with data protection. The agent listing on RM shouldn’t pass on the details of enquirers to the other agent without their previous consent.

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  2. AgencyInsider

    Ooohh you can’t say this Mr Wood. You will set the dom & ducky show in motion and we’ll have yet another day of their outraged quakings littering the comment column!

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    1. Chris Wood

      All most decent Agent’s want is to compete fairly, on a level playing field and for agents to have to obey the same laws and rules and for those rules and laws to be enforced equally and fairly.

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  3. smile please

    Yet RM are fine with company’s buying a subscription and charging the public £50 to list on the site.

    In essence reselling space. As the do bu**er else.

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  4. mmmm

    I think there are some lines to read between here.

    Put another way… Your mate (not on RM) had a vendor who insisted on being advertised there, so you put it on for him and got found out.

    if you’re multi agent, you’re multi agent… if you’re not, you’re not. Presumably if you could show them the contract instructing you, all would be fine?

    RM isn’t much of a differentiator these days as everyone has it, but nonetheless why the heck would I be happy about them allowing non RM agents to get their stock on there via their mates?

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    1. KemptownAgent

      I think If it’s Joint agency agreement where both companies will profit from the transaction Rightmove have a problem…but if you’re multi agency and winner takes all then what will Rightmove say about that? Perhaps we just have a multiple agreement with a friendly agent and whatever happens after the sale happens 🙂

      I think we all are in agreement that RM just take the monkeys when it comes to dictating the online property advertising world.

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    2. James Morris

      We were instructed together with the other agent and a copy of the agreement was sent to our rep early on in the e-mail exchange.

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  5. PeeBee

    A comment from Mr Mealham on this topic would be extremely interesting, methinks…

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    1. smile please

      Is this not the main premise of his business?

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  6. ArthurHouse02

    It would seem to me that the agreement / contract was either a joint-agency contract where the selling fee is split evenly between both estate agents, or a sub agency contract. But they are in this mess as their vendor probably had a conversation with the corporate agent something like “I went with Bloggs and Co as i really like the estate agent, they are local and i got a good feel about them”…..”But Mrs Smith how will they ever sell your property as they aren’t on Rightmove?”….”Oh they are going to bung their mate a few quid and he will put it on Rightmove for them”……..I highly doubt their vendor told the corporate that she just chose to go joint agency.

    Chris however has a really valid point, the playing field between local independents, big corporates/large chain estate agents and the online brigade is far from level. Yes i understand that buying in bulk gets the big boys a discount, but not some of the “Blind eye” moments that they benefit from. The onliners are either a big company with employed staff acting on their behalf, or they are a company with self employed estate agents….you can’t have it both ways

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  7. Chris Wood

    Rightmoves arguments:

    1) We use a geographic pricing model for agents with over a set figure of properties within a geographic area outside of their main office areaCounter: This is fine for a single company with employees operating from varying locations across the UK but these are not employees, they are registered at Companies House and are firmly declared as self-employed by Purplebricks PLC itself, HMRC, NAEA Propertymark compliance team, The Property Ombudsman Scheme (TPOS).

    2) We can’t list LPEs’ as they don’t have a physical location. Counter: All LPEs’ are registered at Companies House at a physical location and are (finally) registered with TPOS as individual businesses at a stated location. LPEs’ are self-employed franchisees, the same as Hunters, Northwood, EweMove etc.

    Separate issue from above argument but, nonetheless of genuine interest for agents who occasionally or regularly sub-instruct or multi-agency list.

    In this story, Rightmove appear to be trying to dictate how agents carry out their business. If agents wish to accept a sub-agency instruction from an agent in an adjoining or the same geographic area, are Rightmove now saying that agents may not advertise that property on Rightmove if the other agent is not a Rightmove advertiser?

    To do so interferes in a legally binding contract and business agreement. If agents are legitimately listing a property, it is only right to expect to be able to advertise that property on Rightmove without interference from Rightmove or intrusion into their business. Perhaps Rightmove, through PIE, will also clarify this matter?

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  8. Scottish_Mist42

    Appreciate this is pie in the sky and would never happen but it would be great if all agents agreed to delist their properties from RM for a particular 24/48 hour period as a show of strength.  I think they need to be reminded without agents, they actually don’t have a business.

    Better go, just seen flying pig heading to cold hell……

     

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    1. James Morris

      The funny thing is if agents did agree to this it would be illegal unless they did it all of their own accord.

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      1. Chris Wood

        It won’t ever happen but I can’t see how that ceasing marketing for one day in protest would be illegal. Even contractually with clients, there is no issue that I  can see as long as the agent continues to market their properties as agreed.

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  9. Property Pundit

    Little did the early subscribers to RM (and who took the free bait) realise quite what a monster they were allowing to be built. Hearing yesterday of more double digit fee increases for 2018 and then this today, things can’t continue like this can they? Who controls estate agency these days – rightmove or you guys?

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  10. Thomas Flowers

    so when an agent adds a listing to Rightmove that agent must handle all the enquiries that they receive via Rightmove and they must have the direct relationship with the vendor and be instructed or jointly instructed by them.’

    Why must they?

    That is up to the seller client, not RM?

    Do RM ask their members sellers if it is OK to sell their listing data via prospecting products to other agents?

     

    Have RM now realised that they have self-injected a nasty lower fee virus into their cash printing business that is ‘fouling’ the printing ink?

     

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  11. Trevor Gillham

    What is unfair is the online agents appear in the RM directory listings (and probably email alerts) in areas where they don’t even have an office or prescense!! As we all know they have a central head office but many of the other locations that they appear in don’t show an address either on RM

    This agent for example on a RM search for agents in NW1

    Housesimple listing
    http://www.rightmove.co.uk/estate-agents/find.html?locationIdentifier=OUTCODE%5E1855

    Fullpage listing
    http://www.rightmove.co.uk/estate-agents/agent/Housesimple-Online-Estate-Agents-165680.html

    No address listed, just nationwide.

    I expect its where they have 20 or 30 ‘Memberships’ so they can choose other areas where they get promoted, surely that’s not correct?

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