Informal and unprofessional - when they bothered to reply
We put in an offer for a property sold by Bedebrooke and received an email from Philip, the director, very shortly afterwards that read:
‘Dear ,
I am writing to inform you that your offer […] has been accepted by the seller.’ (My ellipsis.)
The email then ended ‘Once again, congratulations on your successful offer’ and we were asked subsequently to provide ID, proof of address, and proof of deposit, which we did.
Naturally, we were over the moon and began making plans for the house. However, four days later, we were told ‘We have received multiple competing offers for the property you are interested in. In light of this, we kindly ask if you could provide us with your best and final offer at your earliest convenience.’ Confused, we told Philip that we thought our offer had already been accepted, and he replied ‘Said I’d put it to them and hopefully get this all ticked off for you.’ This is not true - we were only told that our offer had been successful.
We did clarify our best and final offer with Philip, who told us that he would know by the following morning which offer had been accepted. Two days later, we had not heard from him, so we asked if he had any update to give. Philip ignored us, so we chased again four days later. Almost two weeks on, Bedebrooke have failed to reply to our emails.
When he deigned to contact us prior to his silence, Philip’s emails were informal and did not feel professional - starting with the absence of a name in the greeting of his first email - and this feeling was confirmed by his conduct thereafter (not to mention their replies to critical Google reviews). To us, the fact that no 5* reviews have been posted on Trustpilot within the last four years speaks volumes, and before engaging Bedebrooke I would strongly encourage sellers to consider the detrimental impact that this company’s attitude towards potential buyers could have on their sale.