Estate Agents- Do they train at a special type of "School for Arseholes"????

[tiredemma]

In the process of moving house-
we put our house up for sale in July, saw a house that we fell in love with- EA catagorically stated that the vendor "had found somewhere else to live and was ready to go".
Our house was up for sale for 3 weeks- first people to view put an offer in- A cash offer 10k under asking price- not ideal but because they were not in a chain and we did not want to lose out on the house that we wanted to buy, we accepted the offer.

Our solicitor informs us last week that he has not heard off vendors solicitors- it transpires that our vendor has not found anywhere to live at all and is in 'no great rush'

??????

We ring the EA and ask why they had led is to believe that they were packed and ready to go. They came out with some bollocks that they had somewhere but it had 'fallen through'

we know that this isnt true. Bastards.
Ruthless bastards.

[Mercedes519]

Poor you. Simple answer to your question is Yes.

Hope it gets sorted soon. You could always threaten to pull out...we did with the sellers of our house and it worked a treat.

[VirginOnTheRidiculous]

We're in the process of buying at the moment (currently considering just transferring all of my money along with my firstborn into the solicitor's bank account). First few EAs we dealt with were lovely, kind, normal people. Then when we started negotiating, they rolled out Dave who went to the school of EA where there's little difference between houses and Rolex watches and lying is de rigeur.

I've trained 3yo dd to say 'don't tell porkies' to him.

[IHeartKingThistle]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: twats.

[Rosa]

Money grabbing, truth twisting tossers ( most of them that is).

[Dinghy]

When I bought my house I dealt with the biggest arseholes imaginable. That said, the ones I sold through were brilliant.


But WHY do so many (usually male ime) estate agents insist on saying 'yourself' and 'myself' instead of 'you' and 'me'?


"I will send the details to yourself."
"If you could contact myself about this..."


Eh?

[yama]

I was once advised by EA to get a survey done on a house I wanted to buy and to put an offer in.

I phoned surveyors and requested survey. They had recently surveyed the property and I paid for a copy of the survey.

Turned out that the vendor had already accepted an offer (through the EA). What a waste of £120.

I tried and tried to get this from the EA for lying to me but they just continued with their bastardry.

[bowbluebell]

Oh yes they do. Ours was head boy.

A few weeks ago, We accepted an offer on our flat. The estate agent omitted to tell us that the offer was conditional on the inclusion of much of our our furniture and white goods. They informed us the day before we were due to exchange that the vendor was very upset we did not include these and advised us to accept his lower 'revised' offer. Made as a consequence of their mistake....

Following a stern word with their manager (sent with DH's City law firm email footer), we've just got them to refund us half their fee to cover the cost of the 'misunderstanding' (and a new washer dryer!)

What a bloody waste of everyone's time! They could have spent the morning shopping for nasty purple polyester ties intead...

[secretskillrelationships]

Don't tell me about agents. There were the funny ones, like the guy who told me I could move a pillar I didn't like (no, I don't think so, it's holding up the house) and the one who 'fired' buyers in a buyers market for not liking my house

However, the one's I reserve for my wrath are those who have given me severe grief, including all the agents in one chain who lied up and down the chain, telling people that everyone else had dropped their price and they were the only ones holding out.

Oh and the latest who told me mid August was fine with the sellers who, it turned out, had to buy something which they still hadn't found at the beginning of August. But, by then, I'd already paid out for a survey and legal costs. Will never deal with an agent again once a price has been agreed.

[Lazylion]

Exactly the same happened to me tiredemma, and it was a woman estate agent doing the lying. We were strung a long for months after the intial 'chain free' bollocks.
We ended up in a rented house for 2 months and just about to move into the one we paid far too much for. Evil bastards.

[PortBlacksand]

They shot themselves in the foot with us by trying to be too clever.

We absolutely loved a house that had been on the market for 6 months. We looked around it and wanted to buy it (only one we'd seen like it). Ours was not on the market so we asked their EA what our chances were of getting said house. They said - it was very popular and they had had loads of interest in it so we'd better hurry up.

We re mortgaged instead - deciding that it wouldn't be worth selling ours if that one was gone.

12 months on and it's still on the market without a snifter... - if the EA had been honest with us we could have done a deal.

[PortBlacksand]

Oh and we can't buy it at the mo as we're suckered into a re mortgage deal on our current house.

[Jackstini]

Portblacksand - check with your mortgage company if you could move mortgage to new house - most will not charge your penalties if they keep your business.
I deal with lost of EAs, some absolute gits and some lovely ones.
Best piece of advice - get them to confirm every conversation by email. If things get messy it is so much easier to complain!

[getabloodygrip]

They are all shits, every last one. Have had some bad run ins, but the one that really sticks in my mind is the one
who put us into a bid situation, after our initial offer was rejected, he banged on about how many bidders etc etc. What can you do??

We bid, and discovered we were bidding against ourselves.

Twat and lying dickhead of the highest order.

[MisterW]

Estate agents are liars and swindlers of the highest order and unfortunately the regulatory body has fewer teeth than a new born baby so they can carry on doing what the hell they like. I caught an estate agent lying and breaking the EA code of practice. I even had a letter from the company stating that they had broken the code of practice but because I had no financial loss (just the loss of an opportunity to buy a house that I wanted) I had no come back at all.

And as I have the letter where they admit they broke the code of conduct I can name them, Rooney & Co in Horsham.

[Fimbo]

We have only sold once/bought twice in England (rest of time in Scotland so different way of doing things) but on these occasions had the buyers/sellers own phone numbers once we had agreed prices etc we just cut out the agents and phoned each other any time a problem arose, granted we had small chains but it worked.

[new2cm]

tiredemma

The exact thing has happened to us. You don't happen to live in the North Midlands?

[asouthwoldmummy]

I heard on a tv show last year that legally you don't actually need any qualifications or training to become an estate agent or start your own estate agent firm, which I think says it all really!

[natandchris10]

i was an estate agent..yes they are lying robbing bastards...all the bosses cheat on their wives and sleep with the junior staff they employ...they influence you to tell lies its all about offers and targets nothing else...

asouth - no you dont need qualifications to do it, just the skill to talk to people, you do have to take several FSA compliance tests before you can start though

In my defence i was blinded by the fact i could earn good money (i was 17) and i enjoyed the thrill at first, but would never lie its peoples lives they mess with....

[noddyholder]

They do train at a special school and they all bloody pass!

[tiredemma]

Still no further on in our 'quest' to get into our new home. Im beyond stressed- didnt sleep at all last night.

So far this week-
Our purchasers solicitor has forwarded all paperwork and wants to complete next week before they go to India. We see no option other that to go ahead with it and spend the next God knows how long 'sofa surfing' at various friends houses.
We cannot afford to lose the sale on our old home, they are cash buyers and if we lose- we will have to pull out of the entire sale.

So now I am faced with the prospect of no-where really to live until our vendor finds somewhere.

travelodge rooms at £19 per night are our most realistic option. Arse.

[lalalonglegs]

I know you fell in love with the house you wanted to buy but I would start looking for something else as well. Unfortunately - and I don't want to be overly-pessimistic - vendors do have a habit of just calling the whole thing off if they don't find anywhere they like.

Also, if your buyers are going to India, could they be persuaded to exchange before they go and complete after they return, giving you some breathing space?

[Idoc]

Gosh stop with the marketing

[spanky2]

The house we put an offer on was taken off the market as the 'motivated' seller had lost interest. A different EA rang us to congratulate us for buying said house and that was when we realised it had been taken off the market. Three weeks later first EA rang us to tell us the house was only off right move to 'rest' it. Wtf?! By then we had found a much nicer house. So there may be a silver lining, you also have a buyer, woo hoo!

[spanky2]

D'oh didn't realise this thread was five years old! Must pay more attention!