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| Q |
Are
there any hidden costs? |
| A |
Our
standard service costs £89, our multi-list service costs £135
(whatever the sale value of the property), that's it. There is no commission
and nothing to pay when the property is sold. There are no time limits, no
surcharges or supplements (ever), no hidden costs and VAT is included. We like
to keep things nice and simple.
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|
|
| Q |
What
if I'm already using an estate agent? |
| A |
Online home advertising or private newspaper
advertising does not automatically affect the most common form of agents
contract (Sole Agency).
You could save a great deal and multiply your chances
of selling your home quickly by advertising privately. It does depend on the
precise terms of your agent's contract which you should check carefully. A
"Sole Selling Rights" contract would allow the agent to charge you commission
whoever you sell to, even if they don't introduce the buyer.
Click here for more
information.
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|
|
| Q |
What
are my rights with 'Sole Agency'? |
| A |
Most people don't realise that appointing a 'Sole
Agent' does not take away your right to sell the property privately. Your agent
is entitled to commission only if they sell your property, or if a buyer is
introduced by another estate agent during the period of their sole agency.
There are some very simple steps you can take to avoid confusion with your
agents by agreeing the terms of private sales in advance.
Click here for more
information
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|
|
| Q |
Should
I tell my estate agent? |
| A |
It's
a good idea. We recommend that you agree with an estate agent in advance that
they can't charge commission if you sell privately and have this written into
the terms of your agency contract. This avoids any misunderstanding over
commission at a later date and it will also serve to focus your agents mind on
marketing your property more aggressively.
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|
|
| Q |
Can I
sell my house without an Estate Agent? |
| A |
Yes, of course.
Estate agents can take
some of the running around off your hands, offering advice, acting as a
go-between for you and your potential buyer(s). They may offer a number of
benefits to the selling process such as:
- advertising the property for sale
- arranging appointments for visits
- following up buyers to obtain
'feedback'
- advice on valuation
- creation of the property
descriptive details
- collation (from you) of relevant
documentation
- receiving and forwarding
offers
- selling mortgages, insurance,
legal or other services
- holding pre-contract deposits
(sometimes paid by the buyer)
- communicating with your solicitor
/conveyancer
- keeping tabs on the progress of
exchange of contracts
- advising on the status of 'chains'
- holding the house keys on
completion date.
But do you really NEED someone
else to provide these services? Remember, the law does not require ANY OF THESE
FUNCTIONS to be carried out by an estate agent or indeed any other
professional.
When you accept a buyer's offer,
you just pass the details straight to your solicitor, who will do the necessary
legal work.
You only need to consider whether
the amount you will have to pay an estate agent is worthwhile in relation to
what they may save you in time, convenience and personal effort.
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|
|
| Q |
What about Home Information Packs
(HIPS)? |
| A |
Home Information Packs are
required for all homes in England & Wales with the exception of properties
on the market before HIPS were introduced as follows:
- 4 bedroom homes
01/08/2007
- 3 bedroom homes 10/09/2007.
- 1&2 bedroom homes
14/12/2007
From 1 October 2008, all
properties advertised for sale must have an EPC (Energy Performance
Certificate), which is included automatically in our HIPS, but an EPC-only can
be ordered separately if the property is exempt from HIPS.
For properties that require a Home
Information Pack, The Little House Company have a special limited time offer on
HIPS through the UK's leading HIP supplier £299 + VAT
(£351.32).
See our
Home
Information Pack page for further information.
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|
| Q |
Do
you cover all areas in the UK? |
| A |
Yes. We sell property anywhere in the UK.
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|
| Q |
Can I update or change my details after they are
published on the Web site? |
| A |
Yes.
Our easy
to use online editing facility provides you with instant access to your own
property advertising so that you can amend the published details directly, any
time you want, 24 hrs a day.
Change the asking price, update your description,
select different contact details - you have direct control, but if you need
help with changes, we give you free support and assistance any time you need
it.
Amendments are automatically forwarded through our
systems to update listings on our partner network (Multilist Package), so you
control all your advertising from a single point.
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|
| Q |
Do I
have to pay now? |
| A |
No.
You have up to 28 days to
activate your advertising, but property details will not appear in searches
until payment is made for the listing.
To activate an unpaid listing,
login to your customer account and select the
payment option to pay by credit /debit card or to send a cheque, simply print
and post our
service order
form.
Submission of property details on
line does not oblige you to proceed with advertising, but unpaid listings are
retained for a limited period only (28 days), so let us know if you do not
intend to market the property straight away.
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|
|
| Q |
When
will my property appear on partner sites? |
| A |
It normally takes just 1
WORKING DAY for us to review and process listings onto our partner network
(Multilist Package), but this may occasionally vary according to systems
maintenance and the timing of placing and payment for advertising.
New property listings show
immediately on this website.
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|
|
| Q |
Any
discount for advertising more than one property? |
| A |
For property developers,
builders or indeed anyone with more than one property to advertise for sale, we
offer a discounted rate card for multiple listings registered and paid for at
the same time.
Click here for our
Multiple Property Service Order Form.
For more information or to discuss
your particular requirements, email or call us free on 0800 083 42
41.
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|
|
| Q |
How
long can I advertise for? |
| A |
Until your property is sold -
there is no time limit on the period of advertising. The price we charge you is
fixed at the start of your advertising. There are no surcharges EVER -
irrespective of any change in our costs or improvements in the content of our
packages or partner network.
You need to keep us informed of
developments, particularly if you accept an offer and /or exchange contracts on
the property.
We review customer accounts
periodically and reserve the right to discontinue the advertising in the event
that we have reason to believe the property is no longer for sale.
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|
|
| Q |
Why do
I need a for sale sign? |
| A |
To cover your local and
non-internet market.
Still one of the most effective
means of attracting local buyers is a "for-sale" sign outside the door. Its
part of your whole marketing package and you will almost certainly miss out on
potential buyers if you don't have one.
We can supply a competitively
priced high quality regulation size 'for sale' board, customised to you,
displaying your OWN TELEPHONE CONTACT NUMBER and property reference for buyers
to easily and quickly locate your details online or call you direct, so that
they can decide to view or not - possibly on the same day!
Our
for sale sign package is supplied
with POST and FIXINGS delivery within 7 days.
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|
| Q |
How do
buyers find this Web site? |
| A |
How did you find it?
The Little House Company is
extensively registered with relevant property sites and services and affiliates
throughout the UK, all channelling
potential buyers to this site.
As new properties are added to our
network, buyers registered with any of our major network partners are
automatically notified through those services of properties matching their
search criteria, as they appear.
Our substantial investment and
long experience ensures a high profile in the primary internet search engines
(i.e. Google) for both our customer properties and our service.
The Little House Company enjoys frequent media exposure and recently
featured as the leading online private sales service on the Tonight with
Trevor McDonald current affairs programme "Home Sale DIY", ITV1 8pm 11 May
2007. Read
Money Guardian review:
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|
| Q |
How do
I value my property? |
| A |
See our
House
Prices page for information on valuations, Land Registry data, what estate
agent values mean and how to get a FREE instant independent valuation for your
home.
|
|
|
| Q |
Why do you charge for your service when there are 'free'
listing sites? |
| A |
Nothing worthwhile is truly
free, is it? We offer a
comprehensive marketing package, which includes freephone helplines, superb
individual property presentation and listing on the leading property network in
the UK (with our high-value multilist package), backed by immense nationwide
marketing campaigns.
We have focussed on offering a
level of professionalism and quality of service which distinguishes us from our
competitors. We have also been around longer than most other private home
advertising websites and our experience counts. This is no back-bedroom
here-today, gone-tomorrow service.
Our servers offer high security
for your personal data and card processing coupled with 24hr monitoring in a
dedicated data centre - giving you peace of mind that your details are properly
protected.
Developed over 7 years and
constantly evolving, our highly engineered, yet fast, easy to use website is
one of the best property websites in the UK - beautifully designed, updated
automatically minute by minute, guaranteed to keep buyers coming back to view
our listings.
Our service is designed to promote
your property. You want to reach the largest number of people genuinely
interested in viewing your home. We provide the most cost effective means of
achieving this.
And you don't get all that for free.
|
|
|
| Q |
How do I prepare my house for sale? |
| A |
There are a number of simple
steps every homeowner needs to take in order to make the best impression when
buyers come to view. Once you have attracted interest in your home from
advertising, the viewing becomes one of the most critical points at which a
sale can stand or fall.
Our
Home
Staging page has useful basic pointers and links to relevant services that
can assist professionally.
|
|
|
| Q |
Are my
personal details secure? |
| A |
Our high-speed web-servers are
hosted in a completely secure, monitored and protected environment, housed in a
professional data centre with excellent 24hr security, fire and backup
measures, with dedicated internet connections and 'uptime' well in excess of
industry standard (averaging 99.9%). All information on our website is
protected by the same high-grade firewall /security systems as used by the MOD
and Police Force.
Credit card transactions are
processed separately via our service providers SecureTrading and Barclaycard
Business Merchant Services, using industry-leading SSL encryption. Card details
are stored on secure servers inaccessible from the internet.
Our custom anti-spam email masking
system protects your email address from misuse or 'harvesting', whilst allowing
you to communicate with genuine buyers.
We do NOT share customers'
personal details with any other organisations. The Little House Company is
registered under the Data Protection Act and we take great care to protect your
privacy and personal data. We don't sell mailing lists, we sell
homes.
Click
here to view our Privacy Policy
|
|
|
| Q |
"My
session has TIMED OUT"? |
| A |
If you receive a "Time-Out"
error message when using our search or sellers forms, you may be trying to
access our site via an office network that does not permit data transfer or
your system PRIVACY or SECURITY settings may be set too high or "cookies" are
disabled on your computer, which may prevent certain functions of this website
from working.
Basic recommended browser
settings:
Security - medium
Privacy -
medium
Javascript - enabled
Session cookies - ON
Ad-Blocking -
OFF
This website uses session
cookies, which are codes held in the memory of your computer and are discarded
when you leave our website. To register a property on this site or to edit an
existing record, set your security no higher than 'medium' and ensure that
'session' cookies are enabled. We don't serve banner ads on this website, but
ad-blocking software can cause interference with genuine components of the site
designed to make processes easier and is best turned off.
For more information on COOKIES,
visit
http://www.allaboutcookies.org
Adjusting settings for common
browsers:
INTERNET
EXPLORER 5
Click on the Tools Menu
Select Internet
Options
Select Security Panel
By default, this site will be in the
"Internet" zone. If you select that zone, and click on Custom Level, you should
see a checklist of options - some way down is a section labelled
"Cookies".
Check "Allow session cookies (not
stored)". For this site to work, session cookies must be
enabled.
Alternatively, you could add this
site to the "Trusted Sites" zone and allow cookies for that zone only. This
site does NOT require stored cookies.
WINDOWS XP /INTERNET EXPLORER 6
Option
1 - click on Tools | Internet Options | Privacy menu
Adjust
slider to lower privacy setting or override cookie handling for this website by
clicking on EDIT button and entering our URL
http://www.thelittlehousecompany.co.uk and clicking "Allow".
Option
2 - click on Tools | Internet Options | Security menu
Click
Trusted Sites
Click
SITES button
ADD our URL - enter
http://www.thelittlehousecompany.co.uk and click "ADD".
Ensure that the
server verification box is left unticked.
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