Can you keep a secret? A respected City agent can, but that didn't prevent a veritable ear-bashing from a client who had concluded- wrongly - that he had revealed details of a deal that was subject to a confidentiality clause.
Try another question. Do you want the market to work effectively? Well, of course you do - whether agent, developer of funder. True, most of you will, occasionally, be able to do a deal concerned only with your own ends. But with so many now measured against the performance of others, we have a problem.
>Just as people were getting used to being candid about their deals, the formal confidentiality clause is back.
It astounds me that the market tolerates this, and for once I must be conspicuously fair. I've frequently bemoaned the lack of attention to occupier needs, but this time occupiers are as guilty landlords.
Ironically, a lawyer once told me that withholding information with a view to influencing prices would be illegal in any other market, but that's not the point.
The market needs to be informed. Agents know this and share information with each other. Of course they enjoy a gossip, but most of all they need to know what is going on. They cannot provide a service unless they do.
So word gets out and it takes only a little persistence to get the facts. Do you have any idea how many parties are involved in even the most straightforward deal? Why waste legal fees on something is doomed to fail If you read of a deal in Estates Times, it is very unlikely indeed that details came from a single source.
"But what if a prospective tenant hears the terms of a deal next door? He'll drop his price!" you cry.
Perhaps. But if you let a prospective occupier get away with that, you're probably in the wrong trade. The market has moved on a week, a month or a year. It's a different tenant looking at different space and if they are going to try and pull a fast one, do you really want them occupying your property? There is more to a covenant than three years of accounts.
I'm not saying everything has to be done in public. Between offer and completion things can change. A 'closed period', just like with share dealing, is needed. But once it is done and dusted, what's the issue?
You've done a deal! Brag about it and (incidentally) show the rest of the market what it needs to do to get things moving.
I can tell your not convinced, so think on this.
A number of agents have published floorspace figures for many years, but when one decided to publish the most detailed figures ever, a top developer tried desperately to talk them out of it.
But they published and the competitors sharpened up their acts. We now have a reasonably well informed market in central London, and it's improving elsewhere, although too slowly for my tastes.
Would you say the market is better or worse off, than before such data was published?
Like I said. Think about it.
© 1995 Ian Cundell
Originally published in modified form in Estates Times