Poperty Chains is an easy site to use. The aim is to provide members with a "gods-eye" view of a property chain so that they can see precisely how long it is, and the progress of members within the chain. Naturally everyone wants to complete the sale of their property as quickly as they can, so the Property Chains website gives members the tools to help them acheive this.

Below are explanations of terms used on the site.

Status. Your status is a quick assessment of where you think you are in the buying/selling process and is based on a "traffic light" analogy. All members of a chain can view your Status. When you change your status you can decide whether to alert other members.

Situation Reports or SitReps. Allow you to give a detailed account of what your situation is in the buying/selling process. All members of the chain can read your SitReps. When you add a SitRep you can decide whether to alert other members. A hisory is kept of previous SitReps which you can see by clicking the History link. Remember the old saying - "Honesty is the best policy"

Splitting a chain.

There are 3 options available :

1. Splitting the chain leaving you at the top. You would do this if the you decide not to buy the house you were interested in. When you find another suitable house, you can invite the seller to join the chain by clicking the Invite Seller button  The previous buying links will not be shown to you anymore.

2. Splitting the chain leaving you at the bottom. You would do this if the buyer of you house pulls out. If someone else decides to buy your house, you can invite them to join your chain by clicking the Invite Buyer button  The previous selling links will not be shown to you anymore.

3. Breaking the chain completely. Select this option if you have decided you are not going to move house at all. This will break the chain and you will have no Selling or Buying links.

All these 3 options are irreversible, so only split a chain if you really mean it!

Note. If you want to keep the present chain intact, but simply want to create a new chain, just click the  button. You can have as many chains as you like to cater for lots of different buyers and sellers.

Alerts. Alerts are sent to other chain members by Email and SMS text message* if they have entered their mobile phone number. The delay should be no more than three seconds, but this does depend upon network traffic.

* SMS messages are only sent to Premium Account members.

Member Details. You can see details of other members by clicking on their Nickname. The amount of detail you can see depends on what they have allowed to be made public. From here you can send them a message.

The chain name identifies the chain. It must can be of any form, eg "Forelorn Hope" or "Lucky 888" You can create a new chain at any time and invite new buyers and sellers to join. Chains are invisible to each other.

Your nickname identifies you to other members of the chain. It must be unique and be at least 5 characters long. eg Lucky Jim You can only have one nickname, no matter how many chains you are a member of.

Messages. You can send messages to other chain members directly from the website, whether or not they have elected to hide their email address. Responses are made from the website. All messages you have sent and received are shown on the messages page. Premium Account members are also alerted by SMS text message.

Privacy When joining Property Chains, if you don't want to share your details with other chain members tick the appropiate boxes on the registration form. You can change these preferences later once you've joined. When inviting a new member to join the chain you can decide whether to include these details in the invitation email. Note that your membership number (and nothing else) is stored in a cookie, so you must have cookies enabled to use the site. All your details are kept strictly confidential, and will not be passed on to third parties other than other members where you allow it.

Advertise Your Property. Premium Account members can advertise their property for sale on the website. Any enquiries made about it will be emailed and SMS texted to the member.

Property Chains helps buyers and sellers of houses to manage the chain, reducing the strain and working for the benefit of everyone.