The tale of the sale of our old house

[Jeremy Harris]

We've still be getting two or three viewing requests a day, but I'm now turning them down, as we have accepted one offer and have two other offers, both cash buyers (nothing to sell, no mortgage needed) who are happy to sit on the reserve list.

 

It's early days yet, but I have to say that I think Purple Bricks have been damned good so far.  Their valuation was spot on the money, their suggested tactic of setting a low advertised price with "offers in excess of" seems to have been absolutely the right way to go.  That got us a lot of interest, loads of serious potential buyers viewing and ultimately led to us getting an offer that is slightly more than I think we might have got by advertising at a set price and then negotiating down, which is what usually seems to happen.  It's also been a pretty stress-free few days.  It's now ten days since the advert went live and the most stressful bit has been showing a large number of potential buyers around.

 

Early indications from the Purple Bricks appointed conveyancing firm have also been positive.  Everything is done on line (much like the way the Purple Bricks site operates) and includes the ability to scan and automatically upload documents, including those that need a signature.  This has meant that after an hour or so I've managed to complete all the ID confirmation, bank statements, house contents and fittings form, central heating details and service chit, EPC, agreement to the conveyancers Ts and Cs, warranties for things like the roofing, cavity wall insulation etc, FENSA chit for the new windows and doors, Land Registry Title docs and plan (I happened to have them) etc, etc.  The conveyancers now need nothing more from us, have the buyers details and are working through their side of things.

 

Estimated exchange of contracts is 4 to 6 weeks away at the moment.

[Jeremy Harris]

Well, we've run into our first hitch.  As some here know, Iresa went bust a week or so ago.  We've just heard that Ofgem have appointed Octopus as our new energy supplier, and as we need to provide the energy supplier name and account number as a part of the initial property information that the conveyancers need, I rang Octopus for the info. 

 

I don't think I've ever spoken to a less helpful company in my life.  I needed the answer to a simple question, can you give me my account number, and if not, can you give me a firm date on which you will be able to give me my account number?

 

The effing numpty at Octopus couldn't answer either question, not even in very rough estimate terms.  I tried to explain that this was critical for us, as without this information  we were unable to proceed with the sale of our house.  Said effing numpty couldn't seem to get his single functioning brain cell around this, so I asked if he could transfer me to someone who could give me the information.  It's not Octopus policy to allow this.  Next I asked who I should address a complaint to, with regard to taking legal action against Octopus for failing to meet the stipulated conditions of the contract they've been awarded from  OFGEM, and specifically who would be responsible for our losses should the sale fall though as a result of their failure to meet their obligations.  Said effing numpty suggested OFGEM, so I asked him for a number to call them.  The effing numpty gave me the number for the Pensions Advisory Service, believe it or not...

 

I managed to find a number for OFGEM and after being passed around through three different people I ended up with someone who understood the situation.  His advice was to start legal action immediately against Octopus for failing to provide key information that they are required to provide under the terms of their contract with OFGEM.  OFGEM won't act to enforce their own contracts they've let with "deemed suppliers".  Isn't that nice to know?

 

So, I've started stage one of a complaint against Octopus, with a very politely worded explanation of our specific situation, why we need an account number from them ASAP, and agreeing to do whatever I need to do to make sure that happens as quickly as possible (i.e., stating that I don't care about resolving the Iresa credit balance quickly; if it takes them months to sort that it's fine, as long as they can just give me a bloody account number, like NOW).

 

Be interesting to see what happens, but right now it looks like this could stop our conveyance from going any further forward, as apparently it's a key bit of information that's needed up front at the start of the process (goodness only knows why).

[Stones]

@JSHarris Can you not just give the Iresa details? This would allow the ball to start rolling whilst you try and get the relevant info from Octopus? I can't imagine the conveyancers will either know about Iresa or do anything with the information other than pass it on to the buyer.  

[Jml]

Have you discussed with your solicitor? Very surprised if this would stop things, usually only needed to ensure account is changed over on completion.

Edited August 1, 2018 by Jml

[Jeremy Harris]

10 minutes ago, Stones said:

@JSHarris Can you not just give the Iresa details? This would allow the ball to start rolling whilst you try and get the relevant info from Octopus? I can't imagine the conveyancers will either know about Iresa or do anything with the information other than pass it on to the buyer.  

 

 

I did this, but this information was rejected because their checks quickly (as in within minutes) showed that Iresa have ceased trading.  They need to know the Octopus account number in order to proceed, and because the process seems to be automated, everything grinds to a halt until such time as that information has been entered into the work flow system they use.  I guess it's the major downside of speeding up a process by automating it with an online workflow system.  As far as 99% of the information required is concerned the automated system is far quicker and easier to use than dealing with lots of correspondence, but it seems it wasn't designed to be able to deal with an energy supplier going bust!

 

1 minute ago, Jml said:

Have you discussed with your solicitor? Very surprised if this would stop things, usually only needed to ensure account is changed over on completion.

 

No solicitor to discuss it with, it's an automated online workflow system that manages the conveyancing process.  There is a human contact I can call tomorrow in the hope that she can find a way around the logjam - clearly they didn't design the system to be able to deal with unusual cases like this.

[Stones]

?

[ProDave]

Just had an email from Octopus. Basically the contents of the email are here: https://octopus.energy/iresa/

 

One bit that might help:

 

"Please bear with us and we will be in touch in the next few weeks. If you have an emergency such as a loss of supply, please call 0808 1781551, or email iresa@octopus.energy"

 

It suggests the switch will take 14-21 days.

 

I would contact your buyer and explain the situation and urge their solicitor to progress as much as they can without this information.

[Jeremy Harris]

I had the same email, and called their urgent number above, which is where I encountered the effing numpty.  The issue isn't (yet) with the purchaser's solicitor, it's with mine, where their automated workflow system grinds to a halt when it encounters an insoluble problem.  The 14 to 21 days is a joke number.  Octopus are making no guarantees at all, and won't give any indication at all as to how long the process will really take.  They have refused point blank to agree that the date could be 21 days from now, for example.

 

I've had some bad customer service experiences in my time, but Octopus really do make Iresa, or even SSE, look exceptionally good by comparison.  My advice is to switch from Octopus as soon as possible, as I'm convinced they are another Iresa waiting to happen.

[lizzie]

@JSHarris Just give Iresa details and leave it at that no-one will be checking anything. When you get your transfer information then give that to the purchaser.  Details of your electricity provider should not hold up the house sale, its not like a fensa cert. As long as on line box tickers have something to input that should be fine.

[Dreadnaught]

@JSHarris "Greg Jackson. Greg is founder and CEO of Octopus Energy." Might he benefit from hearing from you?

[Jeremy Harris]

9 minutes ago, lizzie said:

@JSHarris Just give Iresa details and leave it at that no-one will be checking anything. When you get your transfer information then give that to the purchaser.  Details of your electricity provider should not hold up the house sale, its not like a fensa cert. As long as on line box tickers have something to input that should be fine.

 

Done that, failed at the first hurdle, as their system quickly discovered that Iresa had ceased trading (the joys of "Big Data").

 

7 minutes ago, Dreadnaught said:

@JSHarris "Greg Jackson. Greg is founder and CEO of Octopus Energy." Might he benefit from hearing from you?

 

Thanks, that's next on my plan, if I don't get a response from their normal complaints email addy.

[ProDave]

Perhaps this highlights an issue with using an automated conveyance system? A real solicitor acting for you would surely put that issue on hold and get everything else in place?

 

As a buyer, I would be very annoyed if this held up the purchase. Yes I would want to be sure about making sure the title is good, no awkward covenants, all that sort of important stuff, but I could not give a flying fig for who the energy supplier was as  I would almost certainly be changing.

[Jeremy Harris]

3 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Perhaps this highlights an issue with using an automated conveyance system? A real solicitor acting for you would surely put that issue on hold and get everything else in place?

 

As a buyer, I would be very annoyed if this held up the purchase. Yes I would want to be sure about making sure the title is good, no awkward covenants, all that sort of important stuff, but I could not give a flying fig for who the energy supplier was as  I would almost certainly be changing.

 

It does indeed, but I'm hopeful I can speak with a human tomorrow and hopefully get things resolved.  Overall, the automatic system has been fast, but it isn't designed to deal with unusual problems like this, so is doing the equivalent of "does not compute" and throwing a wobbly.

[newhome]

What information do you need to put in? Can you put Octopus as your supplier but give your Iresa account number? 

[Barney12]

3 hours ago, ProDave said:

Just had an email from Octopus. Basically the contents of the email are here: https://octopus.energy/iresa/

 

One bit that might help:

 

"Please bear with us and we will be in touch in the next few weeks. If you have an emergency such as a loss of supply, please call 0808 1781551, or email iresa@octopus.energy"

 

It suggests the switch will take 14-21 days.

 

I would contact your buyer and explain the situation and urge their solicitor to progress as much as they can without this information.

 

Ive just had that email but the thing that caught my attention was how it was signed.

FFS, give me strength! 

 

Love and power,

Jon Paull 
Operations Director

 

 

 

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

10 hours ago, newhome said:

What information do you need to put in? Can you put Octopus as your supplier but give your Iresa account number? 

 

From what I can gather, they automatically do some form of database look-up check to validate all the data that you enter.  For example, when I put my wife's name in as joint owner, they immediately flagged that her name had changed from her maiden name (which I hadn't been asked to enter) and asked me to scan in a document showing proof of name change (marriage certificate did the job).  The interesting thing was that their system knew her full maiden name already, something that's clear because she never uses her given first name, and abbreviates one of her middle names that she does use, yet her full maiden name came up on the screen.  Not a problem to sort, it just meant scanning our marriage certificate and uploading the scan to their system.

 

Likewise, when I entered Iresa as our energy supplier, along with the account number, it spat it back very quickly as being an invalid answer.  It won't accept Octopus, and just shows that we are not listed as an Octopus customer, so my guess is it does some checking.

 

Some of this checking is pretty helpful.  For example I scanned our passports as proof of ID, and sent an electronic bank statement and within an hour the system reflected that we had passed the anti-money laundering ID checks, something that can be a real PITA with people like banks and other lenders.

 

9 hours ago, Barney12 said:

Ive just had that email but the thing that caught my attention was how it was signed.

FFS, give me strength! 

 

Love and power,

Jon Paull 
Operations Director

 

Wait until you speak to the numpties on the helpline.  Flaky. ill-equipped to do the task and downright unhelpful is the polite way to describe them.  Nothing would induce me to do business with Octopus Energy, especially after speaking with OFGEM who informed me that Octopus had a contractual requirement to give me the information I'd asked for, and which they'd said they not only couldn't give me, but coudn't even give me a timescale by when I would have the information.

 

My plan is to talk to a human being at the conveyancing firm today and see if they can get around the log jam.  I suspect they can, but by the time I finished trying to deal with Octopus, OFGEM etc yesterday it was too late to call them.

[AliMcLeod]

13 hours ago, JSHarris said:

No solicitor to discuss it with, it's an automated online workflow system that manages the conveyancing process.  There is a human contact I can call tomorrow in the hope that she can find a way around the logjam - clearly they didn't design the system to be able to deal with unusual cases like this.

 

This is the downside of the Purple Bricks model - its fine for the 90% where things go by the book, but step off the standard process and things fall apart. On both our last sale and our last purchase, the other party's solicitor used Purple Bricks and our solicitor had nothing but frustration with having to deal with them. I've heard a few times that when they've got a large workload on, they won't even look at a case until its close to reaching the documented closing date. Hopefully you won't have this experience.

Edited August 2, 2018 by AliMcLeod

[newhome]

8 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

From what I can gather, they automatically do some form of database look-up check to validate 

 

That’s brave given the level of poor quality data pretty much everywhere, especially with no override that could send exceptions to a manual processing queue. 

 

11 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

something that can be a real PITA with people like banks and other lenders.

 

Agreed. I opened an account with Atom bank recently and I had an account within an hour. In contrast I tried to open up a savings account with a company owned by my employer. Despite having several accounts within the group I was asked to go through the full AML identity checks, so I told them where to stick their savings account lol. 

 

[newhome]

And I would spam the Octopus FB page with complaints lol. 

[Jeremy Harris]

4 minutes ago, AliMcLeod said:

 

This is the downside of the Purple Bricks model - its fine for the 90% where things go by the book, but step off the standard process and things fall apart. On both our last sale and our last purchase, the other party's solicitor used Purple Bricks conveyancing (which is separate to their estate agent service) and our solicitor had nothing but frustration with having to deal with them. I've heard a few times that when they've got a large workload on, they won't even look at a case until its close to reaching the documented closing date. Hopefully you won't have this experience.

 

I'll wait until things have moved along a bit further before casting judgement.  So far my view is that the estate agency side of Purple Bricks has worked extremely well indeed, and that alone has saved us well over £2,000, and got us a very quick potential sale at a good price.  I really can't find fault with them at all, except that if I was being really picky I'd have to say that their "For Sale" sign is a bit of an eyesore.  On the two previous occasions where we've used an estate agent that we've engaged (most of our house sales were via a relocation company) the service was no where near as fast or efficient as Purple Bricks have been.  Their agent has been on the phone practically every day for a short chat to check we were OK with progress, give advice etc, something I can never recall happening with either of the other two agents we have used in the past.

 

With regard to conveyancing. Purple Brick have sub-contracted this to a large conveyancing company, who have developed an app to deal with 90% plus of the work.  As you say, this app falls over if you have something happen that it isn't designed to deal with, but then, realistically, how often does an energy supplier go bust just at the point where you're selling a house?  I'm going to speak with a human being there later (with luck) and see if there's a work-around.  I'll report back here as to how well that goes.

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

11 minutes ago, newhome said:

 

That’s brave given the level of poor quality data pretty much everywhere, especially with no override that could send exceptions to a manual processing queue. 

 

 

They seem to be able to do a lot of cross-checking.  I sent a scan of both our passports, and mine's an Irish one, which I expected to throw a spanner in the works.  Instead they just requested that I show that I was also British, which meant sending a scan of my birth certificate and driving licence.  That seemed to happen automatically, and as they also had our bank account details I'm guessing that their system was linked to something like one of the credit rating check services in order to help with the proof of ID requirement.

 

Anyway, despite being a dual national, something that's changed since we bought this house (I was prevented from holding dual nationality all the time I was working, so was just a UK national at the time we bought this house), their system just seemed to take this without a hitch.  That may well be because everyone born in Northern Ireland is also automatically entitled to dual Irish/British nationality, and to hold an Irish passport if they wish, so this particular form of dual nationality is extremely commonplace.

[jack]

56 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

That may well be because everyone born in Northern Ireland is also automatically entitled to dual Irish/British nationality, and to hold an Irish passport if they wish...

 

09:17 and I've already learned something this morning!

 

Re: the problem with Octopus, have you tried calling back? Sometimes the problem with call centres is the individual, so if you get someone else you may get further.

 

[newhome]

7 minutes ago, jack said:

 

09:17 and I've already learned something this morning

 

 

I beat you, I learned that on the train last week ?

 

12 minutes ago, jack said:

 

Re: the problem with Octopus, have you tried calling back? Sometimes the problem with call centres is the individual, so if you get someone else you may get further.

 

 

That’s my modus operandi. If I get some numpty or someone I can’t understand I hang up and redial. That approach didn’t work with TSB however when they nuked my account as I had spent 40 minutes waiting to get to the front of the queue already, but in general it’s a policy that works for me quite well. I got a whopping £38 compo from TSB for being on the phone for 2.5 hours across 2 calls and being locked out of my account for 72 hours when I needed to make a payment. 

[Jeremy Harris]

24 minutes ago, jack said:

 

09:17 and I've already learned something this morning!

 

Re: the problem with Octopus, have you tried calling back? Sometimes the problem with call centres is the individual, so if you get someone else you may get further.

 

 

 

I can't be bothered with Octopus right now, I've made a complaint and hopefully they will resolve things.  However, the glitch has been cleared by the conveyancing people now, just took a quick phone call.  As long as Octopus get their act together before completion it won't be a problem, apparently.  Whether or not Octopus are able to do that remains to be seen, but I've put a rocket under their backside for failing to comply with the terms of their contract with OFGEM, so I'm guessing that they will want to sort this simply to keep OFGEM off their backs.

 

Re: the Irish nationality thing, there was an agreement reached as a part of the formation of first the Irish Free State, and then the Republic of Ireland, that stipulated a lot of things.  One was that the Bank of England would be the back of last resort to back and support the Irish Punt (which it was for decades) and another was that anyone born on the island of Ireland was automatically entitled to Irish citizenship.  Another agreement allows anyone with a grandparent born in Ireland to be granted Irish citizenship by a very simple process of providing the evidence so their name can be added to the register in Dublin.  It's a pretty quick and easy process; the hard part is getting hold of birth records, as they weren't centralised or well controlled back around the time my grandmother was born, back in 1898.

[ProDave]

That sounds hopeful and the rest of the process can now proceed.

 

So Octopus have something like the estimated 4 weeks to exchange to come up with an account number for you.  Then let the buyer have the "fun" of switching if they wish.

 

Were you also with IRESA at the new house?