It was too tempting to miss – the chance to sell my house with no commission fees. If Foxtons had, as they wrote to me, “a potential applicant” who was, apparently, “desperate” for a property like mine, then clearly they were acting as search agents for a designated client and would be paid by them. So I rang them up.

“Who is this client?” I asked.

I was in for a nasty disappointment.

The manager told me that they have a “client base” which they would like to approach offering my house for viewing. Every estate agency has a client base, so why tell me they have a desperate potential buyer?

It simply wasn't quite as that postcard put through my letterbox had implied.

What a let down!