23rd Jun 2025 (19 days ago)
We had the misfortune to try and buy a house through this 'Con'nells branch in Letchworth. Just wanted to warn prospective buyers and sellers by sharing our painful journey. It started off by the property being shown to us by a clueless estate agent who had no idea about the property and couldn't answer our questions. They then made up an offer by a phantom buyer and tricked us into offering the full asking price. Being very greedy, they went on to then hike it by 10k and we politely said no. Within 10 minutes of saying no our earlier offer was accepted.
Then we were taken to their in house mortgage broker who tried to sell us a lifetime brokerage fee of about £700, plus £100 every time you make an application(AKA lifetime commission they will collect from the bank every time you remortgage through them). The offer being accepted hung on us using their in-house broker, with Ellie the broker hot on my heels. I played along and backed out once our offer was accepted (Take that!).
This was followed with 9 months of wait, and all the delays were promptly blamed on the seller. This was despite 'Con'nells taking ages (think weeks if I'm lucky, to months) to get back to me on updates. The seller unfortunately used 'Con'nells recommended solicitors (Swiitch "Worst firm of solicitors on the face of the planet", according to a Google review) another bird with the same feathers, much to the frustration of our solicitors.
We were told the seller may be open to renegotiate the price when the sale went past the second stamp duty hike, but then when the seller refused to lower the price by 2k, 'Con'nells conveniently forgot to let us know.
When we finally decided to pull out of the sale they said its a shame, as we were so close to completion. It turned out the completion would take another few months because of leasehold issues with the sellers purchase, which we learnt later.
Long post, but hope I've clearly laid and called out on their dishonest sale practices, so you can spot them too and not waste your time, money and efforts on this hopeless agency.... Read more