My name is Simon Shinerock and like many people before me, I became an estate agent because of the terrible service I experienced when dealing with estate agents as a customer and the feeling that there had to be a better way of doing the job.

I spent a great deal of time looking into how to do a better job and what I learned has convinced me that the problem with poor service comes from the conflict of interest which arises between a seller and an agent where a simple no sale no fee contract is contaminated by sole agency agreements (not sole agency commission which sounds the same but is very different) which allow an estate agent to charge a commission even if they do nothing and another agent makes the sale!

The problem has been made ten times worse by the establishment’s support of these arrangements, in particular the support of the National Association of Estate Agents. It has also been made worse by the Governments ineffective attempts to improve matters by insisting on the use of warnings that the public do not understand.

The Solution
It became clear to me that for estate agency to move on and develop these agreements had to be rejected and replaced with something fairer.

At CHOICES we accept that when it comes to buying, selling, or renting property things can and do go wrong, no matter how hard we try, there are no magic wands, and the best we can do is work with you to achieve your objectives, to under-promise and over-deliver.

At CHOICES we do not believe in telling you what you want to hear, about the value of your home, what we do, or anything else. But we do believe in telling you what you need to know.

Above all, for all the reasons above, we reject the idea of making our vendors sign restrictive contracts that tie them to us for long periods, whether or not we deliver the goods.

Our sales contracts all come with a Total Freedom Guarantee which means if we are to keep our vendors we have to perform, not just promise to perform.

The Total Freedom Guarantee is far more than reassurance for our vendors, it is also a strong message to all our staff that says at CHOICES it is not good enough to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk as well.

Our Vision At Choices we have a vision of a new type of Estate Agency, an Estate Agency with a philosophy based on Partnership, Realism and Trust where Buyers, Sellers, Landlords and Tenants can get all the services they need under one roof. A One Stop approach, bringing with it the benefits of shorter lines of communication, ownership of responsibility in one place and of course cost effectiveness.

Since 1989 our vision has helped us become one of the UK’S fastest growing and most successful Estate Agencies and our success is finally starting to make people question the established way of doing things.