We enquired about a house for sale on a nearby Bloor Homes development. The house wasn’t fully built yet but we were told there was a show home of that particular house type in a city nearby.
We made an appointment the following day to go and look at the show home, and then returned that afternoon to the development local to us, only to be told the house was already sold. “How long have you known this?” I asked. “A couple of days,” came the reply. In which case, why did we just travel 20 miles to see a show home for a property that they knew wasn’t for sale?
I guess our biggest mistake was not walking away at that point.
Following on from that we looked around the other show homes, and made appointments to view a couple of different plots on site.
I explained from the start we had our own mortgage adviser and made this quite clear on several occasions, but I was asked to make contact with their financial adviser to be qualified, which I did.
Eventually we decided on a plot that was approximately 6 months or so from being finished.
Because we had a property to sell we were offered Bloor’s “Assisted Move” scheme, which meant when the plot was released for sale they would hold it for 4 weeks whilst we sold our existing home.
Bloor used the two estate agents that I had previously obtained valuations from, and we agreed on a valuation which we all felt was sensible. On that basis, what could go wrong?
We set about re-decorating our current home, clearing out a whole load of junk and moving some of our items into storage.
By chance, I happened to notice on the Bloor website that as part of the Assisted Move, Bloor would pay the estate agent fees. This was one detail, along with various others, that was not mentioned or explained. However, at this stage at least it was a positive discovery rather than a negative one.
I emailed the sales adviser and asked if it was correct that they would pay the agent’s fees. Their reply: "Yes that’s correct. Hopefully when the time comes you will also use our preferred solicitor and mortgage adviser - it makes things easier." Note the word, "hopefully" as it becomes important later on.
After our house was put on the market we did around 30 viewings over the space of 2 days, and received at least 5 offers. It was hard work but it all felt worth it at this point.
That weekend we had a reservation meeting with Bloor. It was a 2 hour long process that went okay, right up until the end when we were given a reservation form detailing their preferred solicitor and preferred mortgage adviser. The tone of the conversation changed quickly when I said I had my own solicitor that I wanted to use.
Apparently it was “easier” if we used their preferred solicitor, as they are already familiar with the site. Apparently my solicitor wasn’t very good as they only employ part time members of staff, which is strange because the owner is a friend of mine and I know that isn’t true.
At this point I reluctantly agreed to call their preferred solicitor the following week "for a chat" because I didn’t want to scupper the whole agreement. Then I moved on to the fact that I have my own mortgage adviser, that my mortgage is all sorted, I have a thorough decision in principle and that I’d mentioned this on multiple occasions. Once again things became somewhat heated.
It was explained that the Assisted Move was an "incentive" on the condition we used Bloor's preferred solicitors. However, that was never made clear. In fact nothing at all, from release dates to build completion dates was clear - the whole thing felt like they were making it up as they went along. At this point we were told we could leave, pay our own estate agent fees, and come back in 2 weeks time and see if the plot was still available. Which, given all of our effort up until that point, felt like blackmail.
We made a hasty retreat at this point, and we didn’t hear a thing after that. No follow up, nothing. What a way to treat someone who was about to spend over £400,000.
The two estate agents, who had worked hard to secure viewings of our existing property in a short space of time, were somewhat shocked. Both of them pretty much said the same thing: “Bloor can’t force you to use their preferred solicitors.”
A week later the plot was released for sale on RightMove. Shortly after that I wrote a negative Trust Pilot review, which was quickly buried by positive reviews, half of which were written by people that haven’t even bought a house or moved in yet. My review prompted a call from one of the Bloor sales advisers a week later, but at that point, two weeks after the whole sorry saga had come to an end, there wasn’t much more to be said.
