Tell it like it is.....?

I know the website at Moray Property is quite unique, with it's descriptive text, pop up pictures, not to mention it's 'pictures only' sales brochures. However it seems some agents have been getting carried away....

This I found very amusing from The Guardian - Saying letting agents don't need to be controlled is akin to condemning motherhood and apple pie. Even the Association of Residential Letting Agents concedes members need regulating.

But while the lettings agent sin list is long, few would have included "offensive language" on it – until now.

We're not talking about a string of obscenities on the current state of the property market. Instead, it's an attempt by an agent to inject humour and honesty into estate agentese.

Jules Bending of the Real Ralph Bending, an estate agent in Glastonbury, has been banned from advertising in a local paper and taken down from property websites Rightmove and Primelocation.com for an unconventional approach to marketing properties. Here are some examples of his style:

• "Lease available for what can only be described as a prime piece of retail crumpet."

• "Three bedroom former school house with everything except the randy old teacher and fag butts down the loo."

• "Cheap but not particularly cheerful ground floor apartment."

• "Characterful as a vegetarian's fart, this Victorian beauty hums to the rhythm of a well soaked mung bean."

It may not be to everyone's taste and there's a touch of innuendo, but how offensive is it? It's not obscene, racist or classist; it doesn't attack people with disabilities. And none of it contravenes the Property Misdescriptions Act – claiming a tenant could "stare out of the window at Morrisons superstore in sheer delight" is a matter of fact. Well, maybe not the delight part.

Rightmove says Bending's listings on its site were removed after "public complaints", although it's a bit confused over the nature and number of them, as well as what sort of appeal Bending was offered against the decision. Of course, these "members of the public" could be rival estate agents. Whoever they are, should they have the right to ban slightly colourful language in a world where bland is the norm?

It all recalls the wonderful Roy Brooks, a now sadly late estate agent whose 1960s adverts in the Sunday papers for London properties scandalised his rivals with their honesty and jokes – he was not afraid to call a broom cupboard a broom cupboard rather than a "bijou flat".

Bending's enemies in the business say he is "publicity seeking" – and it has certainly worked. But aren't they all? If not, why are they spending money on newspapers and appearing on Rightmove? Shouldn't more estate agents adopt his approach?

On that thought provoking bombshell I'll leave you to make the call.

Until the next time.

Jackson.