Keeping our estate agency clients safe from COVID-19

The sales and lettings industry relies heavily on face-to-face interactions, we meet new applicants in our offices, we take them to view properties, often meeting with the owners or landlords.  Once a transaction is proceeding we meet many times throughout the process and, for lettings, those interactions will continue throughout the tenancy with property inspections and maintenance appointments.  It's important, therefore, that we are taking the appropriate measures to not only keep our staff safe but to be able to continue doing business with our clients; vendors, buyers, landlords, and tenants.

We shall be closely following the NHS guidance, confirming whether the person we are meeting has travelled to a heavily infected country, or whether they are aware of being in contact with an infected person.  In these cases, we will have to ask for the appointment to be re-scheduled, if we cannot find a safe alternative.  

We shall not be shaking hands or passing items that have been touched by bare hands.  We don't mean to be rude and we are happy to offer an elbow-bump in greeting!  If it makes you more comfortable, we can work to a 6' space between people where space allows.

We shall be regularly washing our hands with soap and a scrubbing brush throughout the day and all of our staff will be carrying hand sanitiser, we would expect the same courtesy from anybody we are meeting.

We know that not all coughs and sneezes are due to infection so we will be carrying tissues and we would ask for others to ensure they also have tissues on their person at meetings.

We will offer virtual tours of our properties using Facetime on our mobile phones so that viewings can still commence, albeit digitally, on vacant properties or when homeowners or tenants are out of the house.  

We shall carry disinfectant spray and ask homeowners or tenants who are leaving the property to also spray the rooms with disinfectant.  We will offer viewers face masks, ask that you take precautions not to touch surfaces and leave us to open the doors for you.

We are very happy to offer Skype meetings for anyone with questions who do not wish to come into our offices.  Of course, our property software allows us to transact digitally with paperwork, payments, accounts, contracts, etc.

For our fully managed properties, we will do our best to ensure that maintenance issues are dealt with, however, you must expect a longer turn-around and accept that we will be doing everything possible to handle your issue promptly.  It may be a case that we have to deliver alternative electric heaters or water heaters if we are unable to fix an issue due to self-quarantine or engineer shortage.

Tenant, if you feel you may suffer financial difficulty due to the coronavirus, please contact us immediately.