North Devon period farmhouse

Our Full Service Package

To minimise the frustrations, stress and costs in terms of both money and time, we provide a standard package of services to help you find your new property. However we are well aware that some clients may have very specific requirements and we can customise this service accordingly. For example, you may wish to deal direct with the estate agents and only use us to do the "legwork" and provide preview assessments of properties.

Firstly, to establish your property requirements, we request that you complete and return a questionnaire. You can download a copy of this questionannaire here, submit the questionnaire online via our online form or contact us to request a copy of this questionnaire in the post.

Ideally we would also meet you or call you to discuss your specific property requirements in more detail. At the same time you can advise us of your lifestyle expectations from the property. Please note that additional meetings or meetings outside of the area may incur an extra charge.

Cliffs near Hartland

Once we have agreed a contract we register your property requirements with all the estate agents in the specific area you are looking to purchase, and advise you of any suitable properties coming to auction. (Auctions contributed 8% of property sales in the UK last year.) We will maintain close links with the estate agents in the search area to ensure that as soon as they receive instructions for a property which fits your criteria, we are one of the first to know. (There are currently 83 estate agent offices in our overall search area.) We will collate all the property details and ensure you are sent only those that meet your specified requirements.

When you have received details of a property that interests you, we will view it for you and provide you with a preview assessment of the property and the location. This assessment will be totally objective, and will give you our opinion of the property and location from the point of view of the buyer rather than that of the vendor. This will allow you to decide which properties to view and subsequently save you time and money by not visiting unsuitable properties.

Mid Devon barn for conversion

The preview assessment will be either be e-mailed, faxed, or posted to you. The assessment will provide an objective summary (i.e. no emotional involvement) of suitability compared to your criteria as specified in your responses in the questionnaire, plus any other additional relevant information we acquire. We will also forward additional photographs, if allowed by the vendor.

An abbreviated example of a preview assessment can be downloaded here in PDF format.

Once you have identified the properties you wish to view we will arrange a suitable viewing schedule. You should be aware that travelling around Devon's roads can be very time consuming. You may prefer to view alone, but we would be happy to accompany you as an inclusive part of our service. We can also recommend overnight accommodation if required.

We would suggest that, as we are not emotionally involved, we carry out any negotiations on your behalf regarding the purchase in order to secure the best price possible. We would provide price information of other similar properties currently on the market or recently sold to assist you with the assessment of the price. This is inclusive within our standard package.

Preview assessment service only

Some purchasers prefer to liase direct with estate agents in terms of arranging receipt of property details. What we are then in a position to do is to visit a property on their behalf and submit a preview assessment report. There are numerous advantages to this service for someone living outside the area. These primarily are minimising the costs of travelling, prevent waste of time visiting unsuitable properties, the immediacy with which we can view property bearing in mind how quickly good properties are snapped up, and finally local knowledge as regard to the suitability of location.

The costs of these reports could be as little as £40 - £50 each dependant on mileage, type of property, and number of properties viewed on one trip.