Very disappointed with the extremely poor service provided by CPS Homes in trying to sell my Cardiff Bay apartment to enable a relocation to Sussex for work reasons.
My property first went on the market a few hours before the first lockdown in March 2020 so viewings could not be held and they were very poor at communicating during this first period.
When the lockdown eased in June 2020, CPS Homes then managed to secure a reasonable offer (albeit under the price they had previously promised) via a video tour (which we had made ourselves, despite CPS protesting for weeks that video tours were unnecessary and ineffective, even making a video about this on their Facebook page). However, by September it had become apparent that the property I was selling did not have an EWS1 fire safety form. CPS Homes seemed to know nothing about the issues that were developing nationally about these EWS1 forms and failed to pass on the demands from the buyers about the form for weeks, even though they had directly contacted them about it. During this period they were again extremely poor at communicating. In the end, the buyers offered a significantly reduced price and I was in the middle of negotiating a lower price for my ongoing purchase when CPS Homes lost the buyers due to poor communication with them.
Following this experience, I made sure the EWS1 form was in place, but the CPS Homes sales director seemed to give up on the property and delegated the sale to a more junior colleague. They found me another buyer in December with a reasonable offer, but the buyer pulled out of the sale in January citing ill health over the Christmas period.
After this, I gave my notice to de-instruct CPS Homes as I had not been impressed with the service. However, they found a new buyer the day before the notice period was about to expire in mid-January 2021, and although the price was not perfect, I agreed to proceed due to desperation. The agreement was that the new buyers would try to get the sale through before the end of March 2021 for the Land Transaction Tax deadline. The sale dragged on and on and on, until 6 months later, when I moved out of the property into rental accommodation in Sussex. Prior to this, I had given several deadlines for the buyers to provide an exchange or completion date but none were forthcoming, and CPS Homes were extremely poor at communicating throughout this period and did not seem to be taking my concerns seriously at all. In the end, the extended Land Transaction Tax deadline was missed and I gave up on the process and pulled out of the sale in mid-July, following my move to Sussex.
Overall, I found CPS Homes to be all talk and no substance. They were very poor at communicating, left my emails unanswered on a number of occasions, and tried to take credit for positive developments (that were often nothing to do with them), while blaming solicitors and other parties for negative developments (not to say that other parties were blame free, but it was CPS Home's job to try and manage this). Their sales management was pretty non-existent and as soon as the marketing was complete, they seemed to lose interest - very different to my experience of frequent contact and good quality sales management with another estate agent in Cardiff (Moginie James) when I originally bought the property.
CPS Homes have a moto: 'first impressions count', but my advice would be to ignore the first impressions of a competent and effective estate agent, as my awful experience proved this to be totally and utterly misleading. Avoid at all costs!... Read more
11th Jul 2021 (3 years ago)
Absolutely the worst. They are incompetent and useless, and I truly hope that their reputation will in the end go down the drain so that people will completely stop using their services. If they stop existing then the world will be a better place.... Read more
16th Jul 2018 (6 years ago)