CIELA again shrugs off sabre-rattling by PurpleBricks lawyers:
May 19, 2017
CIELA again shrugs off sabre-rattling by PurpleBricks lawyers, reiterates public request for substantiation of “completed sale” rate.
In response to this Telegraph article, PurpleBricks’s lawyers have written to CIELA for a second time claiming that the statement by CIELA Founder Charlie Wright is defamatory.
CIELA has today (Wednesday) responded (attached) to Norton Fulbright’s letter dismissing their letter as classic corporate bullying tactics with no substance and requesting clarification of the facts.
Charlie Wright said “We fully stand by our position that Purplebricks adverts are misleading because they compare its services to those of indepdent agents, and claims to perform better at a lower cost. This necessarily implies that the services are substantially similar, when in reality, nothing could be further from the truth.
But more importantly, CIELA must not succumb to such corporate tactics – bullying that almost always results in small business owners hushing up, purely due to legal intimidation. This is the kind of behaviour that corporates get away with all the time and cannot be tolerated. It breeds an environment in which only the giants with heavy resources may play, and eliminates the chance of transparency and accountability. This has an unfair knock-on effect for unwitting consumers and agents alike. We must resist such indirect market manipulation; hence CIELA’s publication of its response to Purplebricks in full.
We invite Purplebricks to refute this view with hard evidence which proves otherwise. We will not hold our breath though, as it has consistently ignored many public requests for transparency and substantiation, for obvious reasons.”
Shared by: Charlie Wright charlie.wright@ciela.co.uk
You May Also Enjoy
Demand for Coastal Living Remains Remarkably Resilient
Coastal house prices fall by as much as 38%, but seaside hotspots still command premiums of up to 76% The latest research by Yopa has revealed that house prices across some of the nation’s most popular seaside hotspots have fallen by as much as -38% over the last year. However, many continue to command…
Read More 
Buyer demand bounces back after May heatwave
New real-time analysis from the UK’s largest property platform Rightmove reveals that buyer demand has bounced back after a temporary dip due to the May heatwave during the school holidays Starting on May 22nd, buyer demand dropped by 8% over the course of the heatwave week, as potential buyers held off from booking viewings to…
Read More 
Breaking Property News 11/6/26
Daily bite-sized proptech and property news in partnership with Proptech-X. Leasing decisioning platform set to scale with new injection of investment Findigs, the AI-native leasing decisioning platform that helps residential operators across the U.S. improve revenue and grow their bottom line, announced that it closed a $32 million Series C funding round led by…
Read More 
Cost of void periods climbs by as much as 53% for landlords
Landlords face growing pressure on profits as the cost of void periods climbs by as much as 53%. The latest research by property management specialist, Rushbrook & Rathbone, has found that the average cost to landlords as a result of void periods between tenancies has climbed by as much as 52.9% across some areas…
Read More 
Lack of Supply Keeps Upward Pressure on Rents
More ‘affordable’ areas see rents rise two times faster than the national average Rents are rising 5% on average in more affordable areas where rents are below £750pcm – over twice the national average of 2.1% Regionally, Carlisle (+9.1%), Kilmarnock (+9%) and Halifax (+6.5%) are among the fastest-rising markets where rents are rising quickly…
Read More
First-time buyer price hotspots revealed
New analysis from the UK’s largest property platform Rightmove, reveals where first-time buyer prices are rising fastest across Great Britain Bridlington in East Riding of Yorkshire (£167,321) and St Helens in Merseyside (£133,106) lead the way, with average asking prices up 18% compared to last year Falkirk (+17% to £118,327) and Hartlepool (+12% to £104,76)…
Read More