The art of negotiation – or lack of it in Westminster….

After decades of dithering, the clients suddenly and unexpectedly made their decision and instructed their agents to expedite it (to give everyone time, the owners actually gave them three years in which to complete).

Having appointed a dedicated team to negotiate the deal, the agent left them to do their research, decide how the deal should be structured, and what items the client was likely to want included in their bid, etc. and embark on negotiating with the owners.

Dialogue was established the vendors but, when certain issues proved contentious and some of the negotiating team resigned, the agents had to replace them. Unfortunately, however, neither the old or the new team kept anyone updated on progress (not only the rest of their office, but their clients as well) – working on the assumption that, whatever happened, everyone was likely to be supportive.

In hindsight, this seemed dubious from the ‘off’ – and the team’s inability to communicate the strengths of their ‘deal’ before they struck it led to inevitable recriminations and chaos.  Half the office were highly critical of the team’s whole approach, insisting they could do better – leaving the clients in a state of complete confusion as to how their instructions were going to be implemented (this was not helped when certain mischievous individuals in the agency insisted that the clients might not want to go ahead with the deal, after all!).

Hamstrung by having left it far too late to communicate the benefits of the deal to the rest of the office, let alone the clients, and with the completion date looming,, confusion reigned.  Mistakes were made;  the senior partner publicly criticised the whole office, half of whom had further hamstrung progress by torpedoing their trump card of  doing the deal without paying….

It is a sad tale – one which, really, you couldn’t make up. Maybe the agents should have recruited some experienced property buyers to finish the job….?