I cannot believe that a man holding such a high position with Harrison Murray estate agents would commit into print such controversial comments.

As a person who currently has a property for sale, I read the article on how to prepare to sell your home with interest, initially.

What you stated made sense, until the penultimate paragraph. Your comments then made me sufficiently angry to warrant a telephone call to the local March branch of Harrison Murray.

The paragraph in question reads: "If you really want to engage the attention of your agent, work out an incentive deal whereby if they get you a certain price you will pay them a bonus on top of their commission.

"Doing this will put your property on the top of the pile and you will be rewarded by the extra effort they'll put in to finding you a buyer."

There cannot possibly be any misunderstanding as to the meaning of your words, Mr Salmon, other than 'Pay us extra and we will put your property in front of, and in preference to, any others and get the price you want.' It smacks of being a bribe: of backhanders.

Once again, the financially better-off have the upper hand. They can afford to pay these so-called incentive bonus. I and a lot of others
cannot afford to. And who sets the cost of these deals?

I would have thought that approximately £4,000 commission on a sale of a property of £180,000 would be incentive enough.

The housing market is difficult and expensive enough without comments such as these that indicate we should be freely offering even more.

Making such deals can only add to the worry, because you cannot
put all your 'paying' clients on the top of the pile.

It really isn't fair either, Mr Salmon, to put doubts into the minds of people with a property for sale as to whether their agent already practices this method of selling.

SHEILA GRAY
March