UK UK - Suzy Lamplugh, 25, Fulham, 28 Jul 1986 #3

[Whitehall 1212]

That will be because the police never disclosed any information about it. Do you think they investigated it?
Maybe it turned out to be a cancelled appointment and therefore not significant.

Guesswork and speculation is all we can do. It's honest. I'm afraid I don't regard MSM as gold standard. Much of what they report is inaccurate or plain wrong.

Agreed MSM is half the battle.....so contradictory and unverified.

I don't doubt the police checked out the reason for the Wyfold Road entry and deletion. My curiosity is infuriating me though!

 

[Whitehall 1212]

Have you checked old copies of the Fulham Chronicle for info on 6d Wyfold Av?

It's a subscription only service and I'm not that keen!

 

[Pinkizzy]

@Whitehall 1212 You can ask JD about the Wyfold Av entry

 

[Whitehall 1212]

@Whitehall 1212 You can ask JD about the Wyfold Av entry

No, I certainly wouldn't. I wouldn't expect someone to ask me to breach a professional confidence and quite possibly commit an offence, if they had no lawful reason to know.

<modsnip>

 

[WestLondoner]

There are two contracts when a property is sold. There's the one between the vendor and the buyer, but before you ever get to that, there's the contract between the vendor and the agent they have instructed to sell their property. This would state commission rate, period of sole agency, agreed marketing price, and how the agent gets paid - typically commission is secured by organising an exchange and is payable on completion.

SJL would be unlikely to have had much to do with the contract between buyer and seller, although an estate agent would chivvy both sides along to keep things moving and make sure the seller's solicitor was doing the needful. It would not be on the estate agency to organise its delivery to the buyer though. The 'bike contract' note is thus more likely to refer to a recent verbal instruction to sell Wardo, with the sales agency contract needing to be biked in hard copy to the vendor.

 

[Jenesaisquoi]

Why wouldn’t blank estate agency contracts have been faxed to the vendor in those days? Or posted? Or given in person?

Similarly why not posted back when completed or dropped in in person?

Does biking it mean a commercial buyer?

 

[Whitehall 1212]

There are two contracts when a property is sold. There's the one between the vendor and the buyer, but before you ever get to that, there's the contract between the vendor and the agent they have instructed to sell their property. This would state commission rate, period of sole agency, agreed marketing price, and how the agent gets paid - typically commission is secured by organising an exchange and is payable on completion.

SJL would be unlikely to have had much to do with the contract between buyer and seller, although an estate agent would chivvy both sides along to keep things moving and make sure the seller's solicitor was doing the needful. It would not be on the estate agency to organise its delivery to the buyer though. The 'bike contract' note is thus more likely to refer to a recent verbal instruction to sell Wardo, with the sales agency contract needing to be biked in hard copy to the vendor.

Not once have I ever been provided with an estate agents contract by any means other than personal F2F contact with the Estate Agent, either at home in or their office.

I bought property in London in the mid-late 1980's and I've never come across agents using this method in lieu of the personal service, for what could be a lucrative earner for them, once the property was sold.

For an estate agency, whose staff were often out and about, doing surveys and viewings, it's a no brainer that they would also seize the opportunity to attend a potential clients home address with the contract and get them to sign on the dotted line and get the property on the market asap.....not introducing a potential delay by waiting for a client to drop in the signed contract to the office or put it in the post.

It just doesn't add up.

MOO

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

There are two contracts when a property is sold. There's the one between the vendor and the buyer, but before you ever get to that, there's the contract between the vendor and the agent they have instructed to sell their property. This would state commission rate, period of sole agency, agreed marketing price, and how the agent gets paid - typically commission is secured by organising an exchange and is payable on completion.

SJL would be unlikely to have had much to do with the contract between buyer and seller, although an estate agent would chivvy both sides along to keep things moving and make sure the seller's solicitor was doing the needful. It would not be on the estate agency to organise its delivery to the buyer though. The 'bike contract' note is thus more likely to refer to a recent verbal instruction to sell Wardo, with the sales agency contract needing to be biked in hard copy to the vendor.

100% if it was an instruction then the company would want the contract signed asap in order to secure their percentage of the sale and before vendor has a chance to change mind, sell to someone directly, or go with another agency ~ it’s a mercenary business

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

Why wouldn’t blank estate agency contracts have been faxed to the vendor in those days? Or posted? Or given in person?

Similarly why not posted back when completed or dropped in in person?

Does biking it mean a commercial buyer?

No, all original paperwork signed in person and witnessed.

Not sure there were even fax machines in use until slightly later in the very late 80s anyhow?

 

[EddietheEagle]

Do you have specialist knowledge/experience of handwriting analysis?

Believe what it is you want to see. I'll stick with what I know.

No specialist knowledge and none is required here either. Most of us are sufficiently competent to interpret correctly what was written and intended by her.

I also understand that some people believe in things that aren't true.

 

[EddietheEagle]

No, all original paperwork signed in person and witnessed.

Not sure there were even fax machines in use until slightly later in the very late 80s anyhow?

Fax machines started to become ubiquitous during the mid to late 1980s. Anecdotally, we bought out first commercial premises (in an adjoining borough) in 1987. We used Telex and fax simultaneously to start with, Telex for international use.

Courier bikes were all over the place around West London during this period. Tons of businesses had accounts with couriers. I don't understand what 'Bike contract' means here though. It needs more factual explanation and there isn't any obvious information to go on. The only contracts that I'm aware of which estate agents routinely used at that time were letting contracts to tenants.

 

[EddietheEagle]

There are two contracts when a property is sold. There's the one between the vendor and the buyer, but before you ever get to that, there's the contract between the vendor and the agent they have instructed to sell their property. This would state commission rate, period of sole agency, agreed marketing price, and how the agent gets paid - typically commission is secured by organising an exchange and is payable on completion.

SJL would be unlikely to have had much to do with the contract between buyer and seller, although an estate agent would chivvy both sides along to keep things moving and make sure the seller's solicitor was doing the needful. It would not be on the estate agency to organise its delivery to the buyer though. The 'bike contract' note is thus more likely to refer to a recent verbal instruction to sell Wardo, with the sales agency contract needing to be biked in hard copy to the vendor.

Yes, I think that is the most likely explanation. But why use of a bike? It indicates something of a time-sensitive nature. Maybe Suzy trying to snaffle a vendor's instruction from a competitor? Barnard Marcus had a branch just across the road further down towards Munster Road.

 

[WestLondoner]

Why wouldn’t blank estate agency contracts have been faxed to the vendor in those days? Or posted? Or given in person?

Similarly why not posted back when completed or dropped in in person?

Does biking it mean a commercial buyer?

Probably because each party needs a copy the other has signed, for a total of two. So either the Sturgis signed one is going to the vendor of Wardo, or the vendor's signed one needs to be picked up and biked to wherever Sturgis kept its contracts - not necessarily at the branch. They had a head office so maybe there.

 

[WestLondoner]

Yes, I think that is the most likely explanation. But why use of a bike? It indicates something of a time-sensitive nature. Maybe Suzy trying to snaffle a vendor's instruction from a competitor? Barnard Marcus had a branch just across the road further down towards Munster Road.

You would want the counterparts signed up ASAP. You couldn't use a fax for this because faxing creates a copy, with the sender still having the original. As it's a copy, so would any signature on it be.

The same is true of email incidentally - the telex system wasn't finally switched off until about 2005 because email wasn't considered trustworthy. With telex you got an answerback whereby the destination sent you something back that proved you had connected to the right place.

The position of the 'bike contract' note at the top of the page suggests this was something SJL had written in as a reminder to herself to do this first thing.

 

[Konstantin]

Agreed MSM is half the battle.....so contradictory and unverified.

I don't doubt the police checked out the reason for the Wyfold Road entry and deletion. My curiosity is infuriating me though!

Yes, part of the problem with MSM being like that is that people think MSM Is a gold standard source, so "journalists" (the scare quotes are intentional) don't check primary sources, they simply report / repeat what was said in another MSM source. This then gets embedded as "fact" because when people search for information on the internet, they find the MSM sources all quoting each other.

It is just laziness because the "journalists" don't have time or don't want to check the "facts" they are quoting. That is why I was questioning the reporting in the documentary about the house sales rapes. What is the original source of this "fact"?

Wikipedia makes this worse because people use it as a "fact" site, a gold standard, because it quotes and provides MSM sources.

If you want to evaluate information you read in MSM I would implore you to ask:

-- Where the journalist got the information from. DId s/he speak to an actual first hand source? If the article is about JC being responsible for some rapes in Birmingham where does this information come from? Did the reporter talk to a police officer who was authorized to give this information? Are they quoting a reputable source who did that 20 years ago? Don't assume a reporter was on the ground talking to sources first hand because trust me, a lot don't, they just quote another newspapers. Each piece of info should have a trail back to a source that has direct knowledge of events, not a random opinion.

-- Is the story reproducible? Journalists are civilians so there is no secret cabal or secret sources, they have the same resources and access that you do. All information comes from somewhere and so it should be reproducible by speaking to the same sources. If the story has unnamed sources then it's dodgy unless the journalist says why they HAVE to be unnamed. Even then, don't trust it unless the journalist is a well known person writing for a decent paper i.e. not the Daily Mail or Sun etc.

-- When was the info obtained? So the news about Suzy's friend Barbara giving a statement to the police is dateable because a reputable source gives the date on which she spoke to them, and the time when she said she spoke to the police. The Times is a good source, it spoke to Barbara first hand, she is a named person so someone else could also have reproduced the story by calling her and asking her the same questions. So we know when Barbara spoke to the police.

The AS book is often not clear about where his information is taken from for example, although we know he had access to police sources. He should have been clearer on this.

 

[Pinkizzy]

Probably because each party needs a copy the other has signed, for a total of two. So either the Sturgis signed one is going to the vendor of Wardo, or the vendor's signed one needs to be picked up and biked to wherever Sturgis kept its contracts - not necessarily at the branch. They had a head office so maybe there.

There's a Chestertons (Sturgis) office on Munster Rd/Wyfold Av, this may be the head office.

 

[Cluesleuth]

There's a Chestertons (Sturgis) office on Munster Rd/Wyfold Av, this may be the head office.

The party SJL attended on the sat evening was to celebrate the 21st birthday of SG who was also an estate agent.
Which estate agent did she work for and where was that office.

 

[Pinkizzy]

There's a Chestertons (Sturgis) office on Munster Rd/Wyfold Av, this may be the head office.

The head office is situated in Barnes

 

[Whitehall 1212]

Yes, part of the problem with MSM being like that is that people think MSM Is a gold standard source, so "journalists" (the scare quotes are intentional) don't check primary sources, they simply report / repeat what was said in another MSM source. This then gets embedded as "fact" because when people search for information on the internet, they find the MSM sources all quoting each other.

It is just laziness because the "journalists" don't have time or don't want to check the "facts" they are quoting. That is why I was questioning the reporting in the documentary about the house sales rapes. What is the original source of this "fact"?

Wikipedia makes this worse because people use it as a "fact" site, a gold standard, because it quotes and provides MSM sources.

If you want to evaluate information you read in MSM I would implore you to ask:

-- Where the journalist got the information from. DId s/he speak to an actual first hand source? If the article is about JC being responsible for some rapes in Birmingham where does this information come from? Did the reporter talk to a police officer who was authorized to give this information? Are they quoting a reputable source who did that 20 years ago? Don't assume a reporter was on the ground talking to sources first hand because trust me, a lot don't, they just quote another newspapers. Each piece of info should have a trail back to a source that has direct knowledge of events, not a random opinion.

-- Is the story reproducible? Journalists are civilians so there is no secret cabal or secret sources, they have the same resources and access that you do. All information comes from somewhere and so it should be reproducible by speaking to the same sources. If the story has unnamed sources then it's dodgy unless the journalist says why they HAVE to be unnamed. Even then, don't trust it unless the journalist is a well known person writing for a decent paper i.e. not the Daily Mail or Sun etc.

-- When was the info obtained? So the news about Suzy's friend Barbara giving a statement to the police is dateable because a reputable source gives the date on which she spoke to them, and the time when she said she spoke to the police. The Times is a good source, it spoke to Barbara first hand, she is a named person so someone else could also have reproduced the story by calling her and asking her the same questions. So we know when Barbara spoke to the police.

The AS book is often not clear about where his information is taken from for example, although we know he had access to police sources. He should have been clearer on this.

Excellent post. Thanks @Konstantin

 

[Konstantin]

I'm curious to know who in Sturgis was actually aware of SJL's appointment at 37SR that she wrote in her diary, did she verbally tell people she was off there? If so you would expect her to take the keys, even if she wasn't really going there, for cover. She seems to have told people, most likely at Sturgis, she had lost her stuff and that it was at the POW, given the police were round there the next morning (so they must have found out from someone, and fast).

You'd think if she was chatty enough that day she'd have said, I'm off out this lunchtime to show that new Shorrolds place. AS makes it seem like people had to look in her diary though, after they realised she hadn't returned from wherever she went.

They must have known what the bike contract thing meant too (it was in her work diary, so clearly a work thing, and no one thought to go round to that address to check on her).