BAN ESTATE AGENTS BOARDS from the High Street.

[Dorian]

Estate Agents want boards up as its free marketing, and gets the brand profile out there, end of. Estate agents will incentivise staff to get Boards up for that reason and indeed the Corporates ( Mann &Co for example) will hold staff days to call unsold property owners and encourage them to have a "Board Up", as they havent sold yet and it would add imputus in interest. Some agents will infact offer a reduced selling fee " if you have a board"

The 14 days to referred too, is 14 days after a sale completes, but the Board can stay for the duration of marketing and indeed the SOLD stc . Agents will often place Boards on large blocks of flats, where no one knows who is selling and the occupants are generally transient. Its a common E.A. ploy.

Years ago Boards worked, but as Eagle pointed out

Surely all house buyers look on internet nowadays.

and that is no longer the case.

Often the damage isn't immediately obvious. But where a rendered wall is involved water gets behind the render and damages the fabric of the building.

Our brick garden wall has been virtually destroyed by a series of agents advertising the house next door. Now every winter frost action causes a bit more brick to sheer away.

IMO nothing makes our streets and buildings look shabbier than cracked render and a plethora of estate agent signs.

And that is how it is dealt with , by the estate managers charging the Estate Agents for the damage there Boards cause, I have also known indivdual flat owners being told that if it is their E.A.'s Board the damage will be billed to them.

I could go on..............Bottom Line is " Property Misdescriptions act 1991", is not only Civil but Criminal Law and false Boards, such as mentioned at the former "Woodman" Building are an offence under that Act. The Criminal bit by the way is not against the Company alone but also the individual responsible, employee or employer .

As to takein the Boards down you can, but beware ! You will the be liable for any damge caused in doing so to the building ( render brick work etc) . If you dipsose of the Board which is the paid for property of the Agent you are also at risk of being charged with Criminal Damage, as they own the Board.

Personally, I kick the offending Boards down, Sue me, the Boards are a menace, an eyesore and these day not required to sell a property.

[mosy]

On a retaining wall near here there are several - been there for ages even sold ones. However, when they are removed they often leave 2" nails sticking out from the brickwork. Adults would probably miss them but children might not. They just drag the board off leaving the nails in place, not even flattened down.

[Annie.]

On a good note ,I E.mailed Hunters about a board near my house, and I got a really a good response, within 24hours the board was removed, so well done to Hunters.

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[marymck]

As I hurtled past the entrance to Panmure Road on my way to catch a bus on Friday, I noticed a contractor had removed one of these signs. He'd obviously removed it from the wall with the six inch nails still attached to the post. He wrenched the nails off with a claw hammer and threw them into the road.

I was running really late, so couldn't stop to pick them up. If anyone in Panmure Road got a flat tyre over the weekend, look to the estate agents for compensation.

[Annie.]

Start a new campaign! Everyone phone the estate agent that owns a board near them,quoting the 14 day rule as I have,it might work!

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[Eagle]

Just pull the down , they are a disgrace.

[JRobinson]

when we moved house we pulled our sign down within about 5 minutes of getting the keys.
we rang the estate agents to tell them that their sign was now no longer needed and that they could pick it up anytime they liked.

within a few days of our third or fourth call it dissappeared.

My thoughts would be that if you buy a property (freehold), and there is a sign attached to the outside of it, that sign then belongs to you when you complete, and you can do what the heck you like with it.

however two doors down the place is rented out, and the 'let' sign stayed up for ages after they'd moved in.

[Rachael]

We rented out our house, went abroad, came back three years later and the 'Let by' sign was still up. Took several phone calls to get it removed.

[leenewham]

The sign outside my house ended up going in the bin and the wooden post burnt.

[leenewham]

Bump. Add comments if you agree. We could make this happen.

[Annie.]

As I have said before Lee,if you are a neighbour to these boards ring/Email estate agents concerned,remind them about the 14 day rule andask them to remove it,thats what I did to Hunters and within 48 hrs it had gone, so well done to them.

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[leenewham]

I'm talking about the boards in the high street. Some have been up years like the one above Kente, so I'm not a neighbour to them.

Many are put up after the place has been let or sold, which they are not supposed to do. The one on the station approach by Property World is odd as Property World aren't advertising any flats in the building it's placed on on their site. If they put it there to advertise their brand, then that is against the rules.

Despite contacting my old estate agents when I bought my house, my board remained, so I cut it up and threw it in the bin.

Not all are as good as Hunters were in your case regarding their advertising boards.

[Pat Trembath]

I agree with you, Lee.

With work at last beginning this autumn on the improvements to Sydenham Road a lot of street level clutter should be removed. What will spoil the effect of this will be fly-posting, shutter stickers on upstands, satellite dishes and estate agent boards and the batons left when the boards are removed. I hope everyone, including our local estate agents and retailers, will become aware of these eyesores and that we all work together to minimise their effect on our new environment.

I note Hunters have a To Let board inside the old Ahwas Supermarket so they should be congratulated if this is the method they use to advertise a vacant retail unit.

[Annie.]

What if ( to coin a phrase!) offending boards are shown (pictures)? Addresses even,are put on here and us as concerned public each Emailed the Estate Agents that are doing this! Or even, set up a standard complaints form we can all sign and send to the Estate Agents? If enough f us did this im sure they would take the hint.

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[Nigel]

Lee
once again in full agreement . The ideal would be for estate agents to regulate themselves -an outfit like Property World I would imagine would be fairly positive about this I would suspect.
Otherwise I think the solution is absolute enforcement with householders taking their own action as need be.
A year ago an estate agent unceremoniously hammered three inch nails into the communal fence of our houses. Blissfully aware that a, we have an agreement that we do not permit such unpleasantness, and b, the house for sale was in the next street . I called the estate agent in question and offered to leave the sign nailed to their shopfront . It was removed quickly.

The legal fripperies raised later in this thread are in my view , something we can ignore.
What legal case does someone have if they nail, without one's agreement , a hideous sign to your house ? Once again , the law should not be seen as an obstacle to decent people making the world less hellish.

The points raised about damage and the risk of injury are I think quite genuine. Most of all it is an issue of ugliness and vulgarity and time we did something I agree .
Good evening
Nigel

[alywin]

Often too they cause real damage to buildings. The people who put up these signs on behalf of agents use six inch nails, hammered in with no care and (if the signs are ever removed) just wrenched out.

[snip]
Our brick garden wall has been virtually destroyed by a series of agents advertising the house

My sympathies. I feel one of those "don't get me started ..." moments coming on. My sister has owned her flat for a long time: it's the upstairs one of a conversion, and she owns the front garden (and the wall thereof). Every time the people downstairs sell up, it's the same old story: without so much as a by-your-leave, a board suddenly appears attached to *her* brick gatepost, either with those inflexible bands or, worse, with huge nails just hammered into the brickwork willy-nilly. Obviously the nails crack the brickwork, necessitating repairs, but worse still, her part of the road is a bit windswept. So every time there's any wind it catches the board and transmits stresses down the pole (which is never flush against the post because the coping stone overhangs by an inch or two, so there's plenty of flexing) into the post. The amount of damage this does can be huge: coping stone cracked off, even brickwork cracked off a layer of bricks or two lower down - and guess who pays for it? Yep ...

I can understand why they're needed, though. After all, in my experience many estate agents' websites don't allow you, having found a road you like the look of, to search by specific road name, do they?

But as for boards in the high street, yes, I definitely agree. One of the easiest ways (along with ugly steel shutters, preferably graffiti'd) of making a place look totally run down even when it isn't.

[Annie.]

The thing is Alywin,I always look at Estate Agents website,if they do not show the road/area I am interested in I move on to one that does! If everyone did this they would soon get the message.Boards, alongside satellite dishes should be banned outright Imho, they help to drag an area down,if I go somewhere and there are many boards I think ok,so whats wrong with this area that everyone seems to want to leave it?

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[SE26bloke]

Is there anything illegal in someone removing the board from their property, taking it to the offending estate agent and attaching it firmly to their property with a nail gun?

[Annie.]

Knowing the Laws an Ass should answer that for you

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