Who Out Foxed Whom?
It really makes me angry to see what Foxtons is doing to there listing clients. That Foxtons would send out a letter that does not even address their clients by name when informing them of the current situation is really just laziness. I guess they did not have a database with client names or the capacity to create a mail merge.
Worse, they are misleading their clients into thinking that having their property on the Foxtons website or in the Multiple Listing Service is in anyway continuing to help sell the property. People, if other agents want to show the property they are going to call the Foxtons that listed the property and since there is nobody to answer the phone, the showing cannot take place, period. No showings to buyers equals … it is not rocket science folks!
To top it all off Foxtons is asking the court to sell the listings to another broker! The truth is that the market already has an excess of properties on it. What company is going to pay to increase their inventory of properties that are not selling (if they were selling Foxtons would not have needed to file for bankruptcy)? So the chances of some brokerage shelling out real dollars for more inventory is mindless. Foxtons hopes that by holding their clients to contracts that are already in breach by a company that has protection under the bankruptcy laws, they might make a little something off the sale of the listings. Hopefully the court will see past the sly maneuver and void the contracts. That way the poor Foxtons saps can take their property to a brokerage house that is still doing business immediately rather than some unforseeable time down the road.