National Homebuyers
A term that lets it withdraw any offer at any time, a legal fee contribution tied to a 30 day deadline, and the two people who own the company.
Reviews of the companies that sell your home
Profiles built from each company's own contract, its published prices and public registers.
The short answer
The House Desk's company reviews profile house-buying companies, online estate agents and auctioneers from each firm's own documents and public registers. Each profile, written one at a time, sets out who is behind the company, what it publishes about prices and terms, and what the registers show. Every fact is dated and sourced.
The profiles
House-buying companies
We Buy Any House
Which of three near-identical brands this one is, the Manchester company behind it, the two ombudsman entries for one trading name, and what its pages do not publish.
Express Offers
Which company runs the site, why it is not the American scheme of the same name, the option it never explains, and what its privacy policy permits.
Property Solvers
Three routes from one brand and what each costs, four different published percentages, a code of practice better than most, and the accounts behind the cash claim.
Upstix
What its filed accounts show, why its own accounts and its own terms describe different businesses, and why its rating sits below its rivals.
Good Move
The company behind the brand, how the purchases are funded, the two different percentages on one page, and the 25 competitor reviews it publishes.
We Buy Any Home
A first offer made by software and a final one made after two surveys, the company that was called something else until 2025, and why it is not We Buy Any House.
Online estate agents
Yopa
Three ways to pay and what each one asks of you, the conveyancing condition on the advertised price, and the ownership chain behind the brand.
Purplebricks
What the fixed fee costs, when it falls due if the home does not sell, the conveyancing condition on paying later, and the two advertising rulings.
Auctioneers
iamsold
Who owns it, why your estate agent is the one who offers it, who pays the reservation fee and what happens to that money if the sale falls through.
Allsop
What its catalogues sell, why an ordinary house may be in the wrong room, the flat buyer fee, and which body a complaint goes to.
SDL Auctions
The company behind the brand and the group it now belongs to, the seller fees nobody publishes, and terms that allow a reserve above the guide price.
Bond Wolfe
A flat buyer fee its own pages disagree on, a tighter promise than most on guide against reserve, and two Trustpilot profiles with very different scores.
What each profile covers
Every profile checks the same seven things, so any two profiles can be read side by side.
The ground every profile covers
- Who the company is
- The limited company named on its own website, checked against Companies House: name, number, status, incorporation date and registered office.
- What it says it does
- Whether it describes itself as buying homes itself or passing sellers to other buyers, in its own words.
- Its published terms and claims
- Offer levels, fees, timescales and withdrawal terms, each attributed to the page it came from and the date we read it.
- Registers and memberships
- What the trade body and redress scheme registers show, checked on the body's own site rather than taken from a logo. A redress scheme handles complaints a seller could not settle with the company, and estate agents doing residential work must belong to one.2
- Review ratings
- Shown only as the platform displayed them on a stated date, with a note on how that platform collects reviews. Trustpilot, for example, labels reviews differently depending on whether the business invited them.1
- Complaints on the public record
- Only rulings, ombudsman decisions and regulator action that a public source records. Individual reviews are not treated as findings.
- Alternatives
- The other ways to sell, and the checks to run on any company.
Why there are only a few
Each profile takes a full research pass. More are added as that work is done, in the order sellers search for them.
- 01 The company behind the brand Found at Companies House, from the name on the website.
- 02 The contract Read in full.
- 03 The prices Recorded as published on the day, with the date.
- 04 The registers Each redress scheme and trade body searched by name.
- 05 The rulings Any regulator ruling found and dated.
- 06 The re-check Repeated as terms change.
The sections differ from profile to profile, because the companies do. With a cash buyer, the question is how and when its offer can move. With a fixed fee agent, it is what you owe if the house does not sell. A profile answers the question its own company raises.
Before you choose any company
Before you accept an offer from any company, confirm the ten things set out in our guide to checking a house-buying company. A profile tells you about one company only. If you are choosing an auctioneer, read how guide and reserve prices work before you sign its terms.
Read a profile for what could not be confirmed as closely as for what could. Turn each unconfirmed point into a written question for the firm, and have every answer back before you sign anything.
Haroon Ali Author, The House Desk. Over 11 years in property and renovation Find the route that fits you
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Question 1 of 3
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What you give up:
Why this route
Close second: Property auction.
Selling in Scotland works differently, with a Home Report and offers over a closing date. The guides note where Scottish rules differ.
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Sources
(2)
Numbers in the text link to these. Each was read on the date shown. How we research