Paul Bell

Review of The Modern Estate

We love our new home; it has great potential. But ...

We love our new home; it has great potential. But we ve scored the Modern House only 3 stars due to weaknesses in process management and due diligence. (Or perhaps, as buyers, our needs were simply secondary to their actual clients, the sellers).
Our first offer on a Modern House property on the Dulwich Estate in London was accepted on 7 June 2019. On 28 October 2019 the sellers pulled out on the supposed day of exchange. We were told this was unprecedented.
Our second offer on a Modern House property in Chislehurst was accepted on 12 November 2019. On 10 March 2020 the sellers pulled out in the supposed week of exchange. Our request to meet the Head of Sales to discuss the situation was declined. Two months later, the Modern House took the same property back to market.
Our third offer on a Modern House property in Forest Row was accepted on 10 June 2020 and we moved in on 28 July 2020. Our joy in finally moving into a new home was rather marred by the discovery of a number of deceptions on the part of the seller. For example, the fridge/freezer and oven weren t brand new as explicitly stated in the Modern House online viewing. The former was manufactured in 2007 and the latter in 2006. The fridge/freezer had an EPC label attached to the front to imply it was new. In fact, the label was taken from another appliance and had clearly been applied to hide rust.
We contacted the Modern House about the inaccuracies in their online viewing. Their response: .our terms of business contract, which all our clients must sign before we market their property, specifies that they must not misrepresent any aspect of the property, so we can only take it on good faith that this is accorded to .
The Modern House may sell highly desirable properties but that old chestnut caveat emptor applies to the same degree as with any other estate agent.