I read recently that estate agents are apparently the second least trusted people on the planet.

In first position are... would you believe it - politicians, with ahem... journalists coming in third. In my nearly six decades on this earth I have had several run-ins with, what I prefer to call, property salespeople. And, not one of them has been a pleasant experience. I have been obliged to deal with them here in Malta as well as in the UK - and in each and every case I have come up against folk that can only be described as wide boys and shysters. I'm sure there must be a few honest, straight talking property salespersons out there somewhere, I just haven't managed to meet one yet.

Back in the 90s I was obliged to sell a house that had belonged to my father-in-law. It was a double-fronted, detached property in the best part of a dormitory town in the south-east of England. The property salespeople, who - we were assured were a decent company - and who we had engaged to handle the sale, requested that I give them the sole agency, which I was initially quite happy to do. The house was fully furnished, so I asked this firm whether it should be sold as such, or whether I should engage a house clearance firm to dispose of the contents. The principal partner, after inspecting the premises concerned, said he advised selling it as fully furnished, as the goods and chattels therein were of good quality and comparatively new.

To cut a long story short, since we were living here in Malta, the bandits hired by us obviously thought we would not be in any position to monitor the sale closely. So... unbeknown to us they stuck in a tenant, collecting and pocketing the rent themselves and made absolutely no attempt to actually do what we had hired them to do - that is, sell the place. So, I had to go over to the UK, sack the bandits and solicit the aid, at a price, of a good friend to sell the house privately. Incidentally, the furnishings and fittings had to be disposed of by a house clearance company, at another expense and probably to be incinerated, since they were by now in a terrible condition.

My Malta experience with property salespeople is also somewhat dodgy. It concerned the sale of two properties owned by my late grandfather, a lawyer. One was in Mosta and the other in Casal Paola. Both were ground floor two-roomed offices, with a loo attached and a small yard. The first to be sold was the Mosta property. It was by far the more attractive of the two and, on the advice of my uncle, I placed it in the hands of a local estate agent. He took one look and said: "Of course you know the market for this type of property is non-existent at the moment. To cut a long story short, it sold for a risibly low price and two days later the agent was round, knocking on my front door to demand his commission.

For the second office in Paola I decided to simply place a small ad in a newspaper. In less than a week I had 10 enquiries and sold the place for substantially more than the more attractive Mosta property.

Moral: Never trust a third party when it comes to selling property.