Frequently Asked Questions
London Property Search - Established 1995

A  We are not estate agents; we do not sell property and neither do we list property or take fees from people selling property. We only work for clients who are buying property and this independence allows our interests to be 100% aligned with those of our clients.

We are not a property "buying arm" attached to an estate agent and therefore will never be involved in situations involving conflict of interest.

Further, we are not individual negotiators within an estate agent who, in a slow market, will often take on retained buying clients. In these instances they will find themselves juggling their time, energies and focus between their retained buyers and their "day job" of selling their vendors properties. It's impossible to do both with 100% commitment.

A  London Property Search is one of the longest established, most experienced, well-respected, independent, bespoke & quality service providing search agents in the industry.

Experience: Our 13 years experience of the property search industry, along with 25 years in the property market as a whole, gives us an unparalleled history to our relationships with estate agents, developers, other property professionals and those "in the know". It has also allowed us ample time to further our in-depth knowledge of the London residential property market and all the indiosyncracies of the areas we cover.

Service: From the outset our commitment to offering the most comprehensive, personal and bespoke service has allowed us to perfect it. These qualities cannot be matched by many other search agents.

Limited Number of Clients: Due to the level of commitment and depth of service we offer, each client engaging our services represents a considerable commitment on our part in terms of time, expense and effort. Thus, in order to provide the same level of service to each of our clients, we typically work for only 4 to 6 buyers at any one time. It is quite common for other search agents to have up to 10 or 12 searches on the go.

Exclusivity: We only represent one client per search location and price bracket. Unlike many of the larger search agencies, we will never take on any two concurrent searches which have the same criteria. Each client, therefore, can be completely confident that we put them first with no conflicts of interest prejudicing our judgement.

Personal Touch: We are not a corporate outfit where your search will be assigned to one of many executives. The experienced consultant you meet from the outset will be the person you create your relationship with and who will work with you on your search from beginning to end.

A  We keep the boundaries on areas we cover pretty tight as to ensure the best service for our clients it is essential that we only work in areas where we have in-depth knowledge and experience, and firm relationships with the estate agents and other property contacts. If we spread ourselves too thinly and offer to search in areas less well known to ourselves we are doing our clients a disservice as our advice could not be entirely comprehensive in an area that we do not know well.

Over the past 13 years we have focused our service, and acquired many millions of pounds worth of property, in the following areas:

Battersea, Belgravia, Bloomsbury, Borough, Brook Green, Chelsea, Chiswick, Clapham, Clerkenwell, Fulham, Hampstead, Holland Park, Kensington, Knightsbridge, Maida Vale, Notting Hill Gate, Pimlico, Primrose Hill, Putney, South Kensington, St John's Wood and Wandsworth

A  70% of our clients are already London based and are simply too busy with their work and other life commitments to add house hunting to their already very full lives. Many of them are experts, and in deed specialists, in their own fields and understand the concept of employing the specialist services of other experts to manage time-consuming and knowledge based projects required in life. This is particularly relevant with regards to the searching for, and negotiating on what is likely to be the greatest financial investment many will ever make in their lives; namely their home or property investment.

The remainder of our clients are more permanently based overseas and wishing to purchase either a London base or an investment property.

In many cases with regards to the purchase of investment property, our clients have bought "blind", trusting our knowledge and experience in picking properties that are ideal for rental (assuring them of maximum possible yield and least void periods).

A  Those that charge 3% require the additional 1% to cover their overheads. As we have no plush offices, nor require enormous advertising and marketing campaigns to attract our clients, it is simply our time, expertise and experience that our fees have to cover, and nothing in addition.

Those that charge only 1% tend not to value the service they are offering because they simply cannot back it up with the depth of knowledge, experience, myriad of contacts and standards of service that we are able to offer. It is our experience that in many cases our negotiating success makes our property finding service self-funding. We believe wholeheartedly in our abilities and experience and charge a fee commensurate with that. The fact that 65% of our clients come direct from previous clients' recommendation is a demonstration of how established our business base and reputation for success is.

A  Absolutely NOT! We will never take on any two clients with the same search criteria as this would immediately create a conflict of interest and would be doing our clients a disservice. Our integrity is paramount.

A  During our meeting to discuss your search brief we will help, advise and if necessary guide you to the most suitable size and style of property and it's location to best suit your needs and budget. If any doubt remains we shall, on an initial tour, show you a range of properties differing in location, size and style prior to making the search more focused. We will at all times be honest and direct with you if we believe that your expectations are in any way unrealistic. We don't wish to waste your time and give you false hope.

A  Although our aim is to find you your ideal property in the shortest possible amount of time the search process will continue until the ideal property is found. In a market of property scarcity, a new client's instruction to carry out a search on their behalf and reaching exchange of contracts on a perfect property for them all took place within two days. We were aware of an off-market property that suited their requirements perfectly and as the property was about to go onto the open market we advised our clients to do an attended exchange in order to safely secure the purchase. Another client was looking for something so particular and so rare to the market that the search took 2 years but, to quote them, "it was well worth the wait".