Hybrid agent easyProperty set for new owner...

Breaking News

19 August 2022

13565 Reads
3 Comments

By Marc Shoffman

TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

Hybrid agent easyProperty set for new owner

Former Evolve staff are being offered £2,000 ex-gratia payments by the easyGroup after its ownership of easyProperty ended.

Jason Bull, national sales director for estate agency marketing supplier Evolve – which acquired the hybrid agent in 2019 - revealed on LinkedIn yesterday morning that the team were informed the night before that the business has been placed in creditors voluntary liquidation.

The move means the easyProperty brand has been return to the easyGroup.

A statement from the easyGroup, supplied exclusively to Estate Agent Today, said: “As a consequence of the adverse trading conditions brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic over the last two years, the directors of Evolve have decided that their company is unable to pay its debts as they fall due and have therefore had to file for Creditors Voluntary Liquidation. The liquidator is Chris.Tate@azets.co.uk .

“In accordance with its brand licence agreement, any default of this nature by a licensee means that the brand easyProperty.com reverts back to easyGroup.”

The statement said Evolve has agreed to sell the software powering the easyProperty.com website and the client base to Charles Hancock, who runs a business advisory business within the group called easyCapital.

The statement said: “Consequently any clients of easyProperty.com business and its sub-licensees should now deal with Charles Hancock."

There are believed to be about a dozen staff affected by the resulting redundancies from Evolve who will receive statutory government compensation.

As a gesture of goodwill, easyGroup said it is willing to make an additional £2,000 ex-gratia payment per staff member on receipt of a valid request.

It said: “Requests should be emailed to Kerry.Robinson@easy.com with copy to Stelios@easy.com .

“This will be paid directly to the individual’s bank account. With this good will payment Stelios and easyGroup wishes to express their sympathy to the former employers of Evolve and wishes them luck in their future endeavours.”

The statement added: “It should be noted that a leading competitor, Purplebricks pLc, the UK’s largest online estate agent, has seen its stock market value fall by 97% in the last five years, reflecting the current adverse trading conditions among online estate agents.”

Industry marketing supplier Evolve acquired EasyProperty from The Guild parent company eProp Services in 2019.

The deal was also supported financially by easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou.

Easygroup Ltd is currently listed as a person with significant control of Evolve Partnership, according to Companies House documents.

David Brierley, managing director of Evolve and chief executive of easyProperty, said at the time of the deal that the agency brand would move from a primarily online-only service under its previous ownerships to a hybrid model, with local licence holders ‘on the ground’ acting like local property experts with centralised support.

The agent said in May that it was targeting 30 franchisees by the year-end and 350 to 500 franchisees within five years.

Join the conversation Sign in

Jump to latest comment and add your reply

- James Gibbs
- 19 August 2022 08:55 AM
So EASY to predict. :)

- Kristjan Byfield
- 19 August 2022 11:17 AM
Can someone with no apparent agency experience make a success of something that has now failed substantially twice? In what almost every agent has reported as one of the best sales markets in living memory- what are the 'adverse conditions' that keep being cited as a reason/cause of failure atm especially within the online arena?

- Algarve Investor
- 19 August 2022 11:56 AM
Surprised easyProperty are still going, tbh. The only time we hear about them is when they are swapping owners or announcing some PR stunt. Surely the brand doesn't actually make any money, so why keep it going?