3rd Mar 2025 (23 days ago)
We sold our home with Rochills in April 2023. Since then we have exhausted the Complaints Handling Process and been forced to take Rochills through the Property Ombudsman. We gave the Owner-Manager every opportunity to deal with this sensitively behind closed doors but their callous behaviour leaves us no option but to warn others publicly…
Choose Rochills for:
1. An Agent Leaving your property unlocked on 3 separate viewings. Owner even admitted agent was known for doing it across other properties!!?? In desperate attempts to mitigate his way out of breaches of Property Ombudsman Code of Practice, Owner had the audacity to assert that on the occasion the Agent left both front AND rear doors unlocked, that the property was still secure. This despite Owner never attending the property to check and therefore having no basis whatsoever to make this assertion. Newsflash - it doesn’t matter if “only one of the rear doors was unlocked” if someone can waltz in through the also unlocked front door. He also attempted to describe it as a “complex mechanism” … that’s embarrassing it was a standard new-build multipoint door lock. It also wasn’t set for double locking as he wrongly asserts and his Agent confirms that ours does not double lock in a WhatsApp message (confusing ours with her own home). ??Owner also attempted to say the Agent “doesn’t recall leaving the door unlocked on 3 occasions.” No, of course they don’t - Recall is obviously not their strong point or they wouldn’t forget to lock the door would they?!
2. Failing to adhere to current Rightmove policy when re-listing your property after a fall-through, resulting in your property being disadvantaged with no email alerts being pushed to the market and staying at the bottom of the Rightmove searches. We, as clients had to educate Rochills on how they had messed up, then had to force Rochills not once but twice to grovel to Rightmove that their Agency error shouldn’t disadvantage our listing.
3. An Agent with such poor ability to adequately comprehend inconsistencies in Buyer’s stories, and their inability to uphold your interests and trust as your representative. Such material breakdown of trust with an Agent such that we formally instructed the Owner to remove him from dealings on our behalf, twice - because the Owner didn’t do a thorough enough job first time round.
4. Poor communication standards, such that the owner is at least twice forced to reprimand his staff for failures to update you on your property sale.
5. A Husband/Wife Director team that - in our opinion - makes it seemingly impossible to provide you an impartial second viewpoint, God forbid you should ever need to invoke their Complaints Handling Procedure.
6. An owner/Manager who will willingly say things to the Ombudsman that the Ombudsman finds to be inaccurate, such that their outcome email does not match the picture painted by the Owner across several issues.
7. An Owner that tells the Ombudsman he was “naturally surprised to receive their complaint” despite full knowledge of the Customer experience above. A viewpoint that is beyond delusional given the case history to that point.
8. An Owner that after a torrid Customer Experience and a request from the client to review the commission to reflect the poor experience says “yes, let’s discuss it once the transaction is over the line” and then promptly forgets the pledge once he’s banked his commission. (Reader, you will note that we brought this up with both the Owner in the final complaint and with the Ombudsman and the Owner has never ever contested that such conversation took place!)
As if to make matters worse Rochills were given until 21st February 2025 by The Property Ombudsman to settle and pay the goodwill offer regarding their Agent leaving our property unlocked on 3 separate viewings.
Rochills failed to pay by the deadline… (As if the offered amount wasn’t derisory enough!)
Apparently, on commission of nearly £5000, Rochills believe that a measly £100 is suitable recompense for the stress of leaving your home and possessions unlocked 3 times following viewings - imagine if you had been away the whole day? Rochills - are you leaving people’s homes uninsured if your Agent fails to lock the doors properly?
So in addition to the contempt that they have shown their own Ombudsman by stating things during investigation the Ombudsman has found to be demonstrably inaccurate, they then further undermine the resolutions process by failing to make good on their poor service and pay the amount they have offered by the deadline date.
They have no excuse, the Owner was emailed the payment details on the 24th January from an email address he’d already corresponded with us on (so didn't end up in the Junk Inbox!). The email hasn’t even deserved the courtesy of an acknowledgement. For a company that prides itself on service, there’s no humility. No apology for the late payment either, at this stage you just make yourself look vindictive that someone should need to take you through the Ombudsman.
The bottom line? Buying/Selling houses is stressful enough without having to constantly check the Agency actions, correspond the complaints and then fight your Agency. Rochills claim to be different, but they were wholly indifferent to the stress and poor service they put us to. They reneged on a Gentleman’s agreement to review the commission for poor service, they ignored our request for a goodwill gesture in the Complaints Process and only immediately prior to the Property Ombudsman’s decision - a year and a half later - did they make a pathetic offer for one aspect only. Like blood from a stone.
Rochills - if you truly were different like you attempt to espouse, you would’ve made a heartfelt apology for the horlicks you made of our transaction and proactively awarded a goodwill gesture that adequately reflected the stress and inconvenience you put us to. You would also abide by the Ombudsman process and make the payment in sufficient time ahead of the deadline. You haven’t done either, you feign surprise that we’ve complained and taken you through the Ombudsman and you’ve now also failed to settle by the deadline. You have breached the Property Ombudsman’s Terms of Reference.
You have the opportunity now (in front of everyone reading this) to properly take ownership of the poor experience, provide a genuine and heartfelt apology that your Agency failed us across so many aspects and make a goodwill offer for the entire transaction that properly reflects the experience, time, inconvenience and disrespect we have been put to. Or you can leave potential customers with the view of the experience they can really expect from Rochills when things go wrong…... Read more