Appalling breach of privacy and disdain for vendors

We were approached earlier this year by Chris Lewis to sell our 5 bedroom home to a developer. We had lived in this home for 41 years. We made it abundantly clear from the outset that we wanted both him and the developer to be as discreet as possible. In the initial interviews with both him and the developer we explained that we had lived in the area for a long period of time, had made close friends among neighbours and wished to inform them of our decision and the price sold so that they might understand our decision. In other words we wanted our discussions to be confidential. Chris Lewis verbally acknowledged that decision. To our astonishment I was approached, less than 48 hours after exchanging contracts, by an unfamiliar neighbour who asked if it was true that we had sold our home. I immediately texted the agent who flatly denied knowledge of the dissemination of this information, saying it “must have been marketing”. I later saw the text from Chris to the neighbour (and others on the data base) which showed not only our address but the price for which it sold. This then resulted in another unrelated agency letter-boxing streets with the same information (citing that the information was now in the public domain). We were greatly angered and distressed by this blatant breach of privacy. It not only meant that our close neighbours/friends might have heard the news before we could tell them but meant that the vendors of any property in which we were interested could see how much we had sold our home for and potentially affect our bargaining power. Additionally our solicitor said he had never encountered an agent who seemed so aligned to the interests of the purchaser as opposed to the vendor. The Principal of Seaforth, Chris Elliott, seemed equally disinclined to take any action against Chris Lewis. In short we would NEVER recommend Stone Seaforth and in particular Chris Lewis.