I thought that estate agents acted for the sellers interests - especially given that it is the seller that ultimately pays them.
As you can imagine, I was therefore quite concerned to receive the following paragraph included in a reply from my estate agent. I had asked him to put the property back on the market after I verbally accepted an offer of £10k below asking price. The estate agent tried everything he could to dissuade me from putting it back on - despite it being my right to have the property listed until contracts have been exchanged. Eventually they called the buyer and they increased their offer to the asking price so long as it remains off of the market.
It was the Estate agent that provided the valuation initially, and I am concerned that they may have undervalued it. The house received this offer only two days after it being on the market (the buyer has listed their house up with the same estate agency).
Am I getting a bad deal here? Why would the Estate Agent try so hard to dissuade me from re-listing the property? They are meant to follow my instructions and act in my interests - not the buyers!
This is the part of their response that caused me so much concern (below) :
“The property remains listed as SSTC (Sold Subject to Contract) online, so it can still be tracked publicly. However, the buyer has already incurred costs by instructing solicitors and completing anti-money laundering checks, so it would be unfair to fully remarket the property at this stage. We only marked it as SSTC after those steps were completed.”