House-hunters to the stars

Admit it. You sometimes read celebrity gossip columns discussing new houses bought by the rich and famous.

Typically, these concentrate on David and Victoria's Beckingham Palace, Madonna's latest English home, or JK Rowling's £5 million London base. But do not expect celebrities or the even richer City multi-millionaires to hunt for houses themselves.

Instead, they use buying agents. There are around 50 of them in the UK, mostly independent operators who go to extraordinary lengths to find out what their clients want, and then scour the country to find the right property.

"Finding out exactly what the client wants is an intensive process that involves interviews, meeting their partner and families, and encouraging them to focus on specific needs," says Jonathan Harrington, who runs the property-buying division of the Knight Frank estate agency.

The buying agent contacts estate agents in the client's chosen area to see what is already available, or known to be coming on to the market. "The critical factor is to have contacts in the industry who trust you," says Harrington, who organises his team of four according to their specialist knowledge of different parts of the country.

"It doesn't matter that we share the name with an established estate agency - we neither seek nor expect favours from Knight Frank estate agents selling properties, and we contact all agents in an area. Some of our best contacts work for companies that are rivals to Knight Frank," he says.

"We'll see any number of properties, short-list them and get the client to visit only one or two. We aim to ensure no wasted visits."

If a house meets the client's requirements, Harrington's team then negotiates. This will include dis cussions with the sellers over price, fixtures and fittings, the timing of the move, any sitting tenancies, land use and so on. Harrington arranges surveys, mortgage funding if required, local government searches, finds removals companies and ensures everything runs smoothly.

Many estate agencies dealing with high-price properties attracting high-profile customers have opened buying agencies in recent years, but Britain's oldest example of this business is the inde pendent Property Vision, which opened 18 years ago.

"We're more advisers than finders," says Rupert Bradstock, who runs its country house department.

"But our real work takes place after we locate the ideal property. We need to make sure it's as private as our client needs and there will be no surprises like pylons to spoil a view, or high hilltops, where press photographers could look down into the grounds," Bradstock says.

Not all buying agents oper ate on a large scale. Farmer Charles Grover started Perhay Property Search early this year to help people find homes in west Dorset. He has buyers wanting homes ranging in price from £200,000 to £1 million.

Grover, a former land agent, has good contacts. Even so, he says "it's been a baptism of fire" with bad weather, foot and mouth and a general election not making it the easiest starting period.

"One difficulty was getting established with estate agents willing to let you know of properties before they come to the market," he admits. "The other, bigger buying agents have their feet under the table in a big way."

The buying agent's work isn't necessarily over when the client is ready to move in. Knight Frank's Harrington has had to arbitrate between seller and buyer over the most trivial disputes.

"We nearly didn't go through with a purchase for some millions because of a dispute over fences and furniture," he says.

Even on the day of a house move he has to work for his clients. Once, he found himself herding sheep off land they were grazing against the new owner's wishes.

• Contacts: Knight Frank, 020 7629 8171; Property Vision, 020 7823 8388; Perhay Property Search, 01308 488310.

The agents

Buying agents like to keep their activities low-key to keep clients' identities secret but it is known that:

• Buying agents have clients spending as little as ?200,000 - but are most effective when buying properties worth ?1m or more.

• More than 40 per cent of UK homes sold in 2000-01 for £1m or more were purchased by agents.

• Property Vision bought more than ?200m worth of houses in 2000 - 76 in London and 45 in the country.

• Most clients pay a registration fee (?300 to ?2,500), plus a proportion of the purchase price.

• Buying divisions of established estate agents have strict rules to avoid conflicts of interest and prevent 'double fees' for clients - a buyer who finds a house for sale through their own estate agency forgoes the fee.