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
Housing Insight Report October 2025
The latest figures reveal a steadier, more confident property market, with committed buyers driving sales and rental arrears falling to their lowest level since 2022. In spite of slight dips in demand, rising stock levels and stabilising rents signal a sector gradually finding its balance. Residential sales Prospective buyer registrations dropped in October 2025 The…
Read More 
9 luxury property features to impress Christmas guests
9 of the fanciest home features to impress your Christmas guests – And how much they’ll set you back As the festive season approaches and we prepare to welcome guests into our homes, Enness Global has identified nine of the most extravagant and fancy home features that define true luxury at Christmas. But impressing the…
Read More 
No acceleration in rental EPC improvements despite policy push
Rightmove’s 2025 Greener Homes Report reveals: Energy efficiency of homes continues to steadily improve, but slowly: Rental sector stock still more energy efficient than resale stock Both markets have seen a 3% year-on-year jump in proportion of homes with at least an EPC rating of C (58% of homes for rent, 46% of homes for…
Read More 
London renters making it onto the ladder without a deposit
Developers helping London renters onto the property ladder without a deposit, when the Government won’t The latest insight from London’s largest lettings and sales estate agent brand, Foxtons, has revealed that despite the Government providing no new support in the recent Budget for first time buyers, a growing collaboration between developers and lenders is helping…
Read More 
Prime London Sees Post-Budget Surge in £2m+ Listings
The latest research from prime London property experts, Jefferies London, reveals that, just two weeks on from the Autumn Budget and its newly announced prime property surcharges, an estimated 444 homes priced at £2m or more have been listed for sale across the capital. These new listings account for around one in 10 (9%) of…
Read More 
2026 Will Test BTR’s Potential and Government’s Resolve
By Justine Edmonds, Head of Build to Rent / Leasing Strategies, LRG Throughout 2025 I have spent hours in meetings with and on discussion panels with institutional investors, developers and local authorities. And everything I’ve picked up on in the last year suggests that 2026 will be a crossroads for Build to Rent (BTR). The…
Read More