Belfast estate and letting agency Key One Property has accepted an out of court settlement in a "David and Goliath" case against one of the UK's largest suppliers of industry software.

Our agency launched legal proceedings earlier this year on the basis that it was mis-sold a defective product by the software supplier. This followed the agency having to pre-maturely end its contract with the supplier as the product was not as described to them during the sales process, and it had an inherent defect.

Tracking client funds and being able to produce accurate, transparent, and timely statements of account is critical to our business, and we have worked hard for many years to build up trust and credibility with our client base. However, the failings of the new software quickly started to erode that trust. 

We were forced to abandon the software in just one month but had wasted a lot of time on implementing it and unfortunately it was directly responsible for the loss of some business. We asked the supplier for compensation, but they resolutely ignored all our communications. We were forced to launch legal proceedings to try and recuperate our losses, and only then did the supplier start to communicate with us. At one stage the company tried to use its might to threaten us to back down, but we were confident that our case was strong and refused to do so. We are a very small business, and we were up against one of the UK’s biggest outfits. However, eventually it was the software supplier that backed down. We were offered a settlement for an undisclosed sum which was subject to further negotiation before being accepted.  

The name of the supplier is being withheld as part of the confidential settlement.