Customer Service Column - December 05, 1993
Today’s case is BIG. Fundamentally, it is about our right for honesty and transparency. All letters are heavily edited. I received a letter from a company regarding the purchase of a house in Kalkara. I hereby feature the salient two paragraphs.
In June of last year, a written offer of Lm23,000 was handed personally by one of our directors to Mr. Ivan Azzopardi (director, Dhalia Central), who had power of attorney over the house. He promised us that things would be finalised the following week. However he hindered us from doing this, even though we offered more money than that offered by ‘somebody else’ before he (Mr. Azzopardi) signed the preliminary agreement.
After many months we bought the same house but at a much higher price (Lm33,000) from G.V. Developments… (M.B. June 7)
I referred M.B.’s letter to Mr. Azzopardi and to the Association of Estate Agents’ Committee of Ethics and asked for their comments. The first response was from Dhalia Investments Ltd.’s lawyer, who sent a letter to my editor, which was referred to me. Here follow excerpts from it:
I take the opportunity to inform you that the alleged facts mentioned in the letter are completely unfounded and their publication in your newspaper would cause irreparable damage to my clients in the course of their business… my client will certainly avail himself of all legal remedies available for liquidation of damages in terms of Press Laws… my clients formally request you to declare whether you intend to publish same in one of your weekly Sunday Times issues. (legal adviser o.b.o. Dhalia Investments Ltd., June 9)
I then received a letter from Mr.Azzopardi:
Having gone through all the papers sent to you by M.B., I must object to most of the information as blatant lies… M.B. had every opportunity of purchasing the property at a lower price initially and their frustration is that they had to pay a higher price for the property later on, which deal Dhalia Central had absolutely no connection with… The purchasers, G.V. Developments Ltd., have no connection with me whatsoever… The fact that Chris Grech is a director in both companies has nothing to do with me…
Regarding the above information, I must make it clear that Dhalia Central or myself were not involved in the deal… As a final note, I would like to inform you that M.B. did come to me with a proposition before coming to you where she proposed that I gave her a substantial amount of money so she keeps quiet… Please contact me personally should you require more information, as I am very concerned about the situation… On behalf of Dhalia Central, I must inform you that, should any false information go to print, we shall sue for damages. (Ivan Azzopardi, Director, Dhalia Central, June 11)
I referred Mr. Azzopardi’s letter to M.B. The money M.B. asked for was a refund of the extra money they had to pay for the same house. In the meantime the copy of M.B.’s letter I had referred to the Association of Estate Agents Committee of Ethics by registered mail was returned to me unclaimed. I had no intention of going through the rigmarole of including them in our list so I referred to the case and the letter in my column of July 4 whereupon I received a letter from Mr. M. Tabone (Secretary, Association of Estate Agents):
We refer to your article in the Sunday Times of July 4 and particularly the item sub-headed “Estate Agents Committee of Ethics”… we cannot understand why your letter was returned “unclaimed”…
The undersigned has contacted the chairman of the Ethics Committee, who confirms that the complaint in question is being dealt with and complainant has been advised accordingly… The Ethics Committee is seeking clarification on some points and the case should be concluded shortly… business is handled in a professional and ethical manner and we assure that we take all complaints seriously. (M.Tabone, July 6)
It did not take long for Dhalia to successfully exercise their persuasion skills. I soon received another letter from M.B.:
We would like to thank you heartily for the service and advice you have offered regarding our case.
After receiving intimidating letters, and as we would not like to proceed to court, although we honestly believe we have a good and honest case, we have decided to ask you not to publish our letter of June 7.
We wish you every success in your good work in “The Customer Service Column”. (M.B., July 13)
Down goes my complainant! What must I do? I indulged in some soul-searching.
Too much lip service is being paid to transparency, honesty, and in this case, “ethics”. However, I see no evidence of any subscription. It goes totally against my grain to knuckle under when I see such arrogant aggression being countered by such submissiveness so I decided to soldier on, on my own, no matter what. This dog will not be called off.
I had made it quite clear to M.B., before we started, that letters, once sent, cannot be withdrawn. M.B. also sent me a letter in response to Mr. Azzopardi’s letter which, due to lack of space, I cannot feature. I referred it to Mr. Azzopardi who soon responded, retaining the same stance. I hereby feature the opening:
Our reason for writing this letter is not to defend ourselves in any way, but to inform you that we are now getting fed-up with the situation and false allegations, and are considering legal action… (Ivan Azzopardi, August 24)
In the letter Mr. Azzopardi referred to many points but I had to put my foot down and focus on the more important ones so I replied with the following letter:
I must confess that, as far as this case is concerned, I started “getting fed-up” with the situation a long time ago when the letter I sent to the Association of Estate Agents (Malta) Committee of Ethics by registered mail was returned to me unclaimed…
As you know, the matter had already been referred to them by M.B. … I eventually re-sent the letter and I am currently waiting to hear from them since the Committee of Ethics is assessing the case… I am waiting for the outcome of the hearing and, when I hear from them, I would be in a better position to decide whether to feature the case or not…
I was told by Mr. Tabone during a telephone conversation that I can expect to hear from them by the end of this month… I can assure you that currently, although you are “getting fed-up” this case is still pending… Although I was, and I still am, “getting fed-up” with the situation regarding this case, unlike your goodself, I never felt the need to tell anybody… Basic decency, manners, and respect, particularly while bearing in mind the delicate nature, the implications, and the possible repercussions of this case, do not permit me to adopt such an approach…
With due respect, Mr. Azzopardi, I would like to politely point out that I note a tinge of arrogance in your approach… I am totally aware of the fact that anybody can take legal action against anybody and, unlike M.B., I am perfectly comfortable with that…
Please note that, in my efforts to be completely fair, I do not rush into making decisions without first looking into all the implications of any given case, irrespective of whether I am “getting fed-up” or not… In this case it has transpired that, although Dhalia may not have done anything that could be termed as illegal, a question of ethics has arisen… and while bearing in mind that the Association of Estate Agents has, quite rightly, set up a Committee of Ethics, the least I can do is to give the Committee its due respect by waiting for their verdict…
Incidentally I have a copy of their code of ethics which makes very interesting reading and I suggest you read it… At this juncture a resumé of the case is called for… I shall now state some facts.
The owners, who reside in the UK, commissioned you to sell their property at The Strand, Kalkara. They trusted you to the extent that they were prepared to give you power of attorney…
The property was duly advertised and in May 1992 M.B., o.b.o. a company, showed a keen interest in the property. I am not a property negotiator but I am intelligent enough to know that a good experienced property negotiator smells a potential buyer a mile away…
After you showed them the property they made an offer of Lm23,000… Since, as you said in your letter to me of June 11, you were not authorised to accept any conditions on the preliminary agreement, you informed them that they had to be prepared to sign a preliminary agreement without the “subject to bank loan” clause, thus running the risk of losing the deposit should the loan not materialise. You also informed them that you had another buyer who was prepared to do this. In order to make such a commitment M.B. had to consult her partners and before she was able to come back with a decision, it transpired that arrangements had already been made for a preliminary agreement to be signed with the other buyer.
On June 6 1992, a preliminary agreement was signed between you, on behalf of the owners and Mr. Christopher Grech (your partner and co-director in Dhalia Central Ltd.) for the transfer of the property in question in consideration of the price of Lm23,000. On July 20, 1992 the transfer was finalised and a contract was signed. The new owners were G.V. Developments Ltd. The directors and owners of this company are Mr. Christopher Grech (your partner and co-director in Dhalia Central Ltd.) and Mrs. Nadia Vella (a Dhalia property negotiator).
Eventually in October 1992 the same company, who were as keen as they always had been on buying the property, possibly due to its location in relation to their business premises, bought the same property from G.V. Developments Ltd. for the sum of Lm33,000 (an extra Lm10,000).
The facts mentioned, most of which are substantiated by documented evidence in my possession, are very relevant and indeed more relevant than the “false allegations” you referred to in your letter of the 24th instant with which you are “getting fed-up”.
It is very important for me to know if you think this letter contains any “false allegations”. Once again, Mr. Azzopardi, I ask you to let me know if there are any… if I do not hear from you, I shall assume that there are no “false allegations” in this letter. (A. V. Muscat Inglott, August 30)
My assertive stance paid off, resulting in a change of attitude. I received a letter from Mr. Azzopardi, of which I hereby feature a very important statement which, in all fairness, called for courage on his part:
I must apologise to you regarding my attitude, however I would like to make it clear that this was not directed to you personally but to the situation… (Ivan Azzopardi, September 7)
In the meantime I was fighting on another front. I was experiencing extreme difficulty extracting a verdict out of the Association of Estate Agents’ Committee of Ethics. Indeed I had to, once again, refer to the case in my column (September 19) and I soon received the following letter:
We refer to your column in the Sunday Times on September 19… While admiring your perseverance and the scope of your much needed column, one expects your column to epitomise ethics, as you state in the same article… non receipt of your first letter can only be blamed on the postal authorities… This case has turned out to be more complicated than it first appeared… we shall contact you immediately once the Ethics Committee reaches a decision. (M. Tabone, September 22)
Here we go again paying lip service to the concept of ethics. I had to yet again adopt an assertive stance. I replied as follows:
While I thank you for admiring my perseverance and the scope of my much needed column, I note your comment “one expects your column to epitomise ethics”… My reference to an “unclaimed registered letter” is based on a simple, still unexplained fact… as I write this letter, I am still waiting to hear the outcome of the case… Although the case was brought to your attention on May 3… I see no evidence to suggest that the case was actively looked into before I referred to it in my July 4 column…
The documented evidence I have in my possession does not suggest that this case is as complicated as you are suggesting it has turned out to be… I have already drawn my own conclusions and formed an opinion but to be ethical I did not, and should I decide to feature the case, I will not outline my conclusions and my opinion.
As I have said before, I would stick to simple facts substantiated by documented evidence in my possession… indeed it is your conclusion and your opinion that really matter in this case because you are the flag bearer, or rather, the representative of the body which has chosen to ride under the banner of “Ethics”. Therefore the comment you made about my column ought to be directed at your goodself and your Committee of Ethics. May I suggest that you now show us that you do honestly subscribe to the philosophy you have so actively paid so much lip service to, by turning your words into action…
Please try to appreciate that, by the mere fact that I referred the case to you, I have shown you my respect… I am insisting on waiting to hear from you… with information about the Committee of Ethics conclusion/verdict as to whether Dhalia Central and G.V. Developments have acted in an unethical fashion or not… our column’s readers would be more interested in your opinion/conclusion than mine. I do not claim to be an expert on ethics. (A. V. Muscat Inglott, October 5)
My dear friends and fellow consumers, I can assure you that I put my heart into this case along with my energy and my relentless passion for transparency. However, too often, I find myself dealing with people who will never, no matter what, embrace the philosophy. Sadly, despite all my efforts, which I kept up for six months, I did not manage to extract details of a verdict out of the Association of Estate Agents Ethics Committee. Here follows their latest short letter with a short message which says it all, in a nutshell:
Further to your recent inquiries, we write to inform you that the Ethics Committee of the Association of Estate Agents has reached its decision regarding the case in caption, details of which have been notified to both parties concerned. (Mr. Edgar Tabone, Ethics Committee Chairman, November 27)
Now, by way of this column, I ask Mr. Edgar Tabone, “What is the Ethics Committee’s decision?!”
Adrian V. Muscat Inglott
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