Putting an a house offer has become such a hassle

I sold a house recently. I instructed the estate agent not to bother me with any bids/offers that werent proceedable. Your offer isnt even an offer unless you have answered those questions from the estate agent. The fact you cant even be bothered to do it makes it even less of an offer.

I was selling a house. I wasnt wanting to be sat going backwards and forwards with dreamers wanting to see how low i would go in an imaginary negotiation.

House sold, got what i wanted and the buyer was as good as their word. All done in less than 6 weeks.

Well, you’ve benefited to be fair because then when you want to put the next one in, you’ll be ready

But it doesn’t matter what the interest level is. I could be interested in buying your house but if I haven’t got any money, there’s no point in me being interested is there? See what I mean
All this messing around in the market just creates extra work for people, including you

Were these changes introduced in the last two and a half weeks? Because that's when I last put an offer on a house.

Can we have references to the law you are referring to? Any references to the "procedures for buying houses"?
The only recent change I am aware of is that EAs are now doing AML checks but where does it say that they have to do them before the offer is accepted?

As a vendor I would far rather know exactly what interest there is and at what level asap. If someone's offer was being withheld from me so I couldn't evaluate it because of a load of red tape I'd be pissed right off.

Literally that.
it would appear that many of you haven’t kept up with recent changes in the law and the procedures for buying houses and many of you have been educated on this thread as to what you’ll need to do going forward. that’s a good thing

When we were looking 2 years ago, they were very relucent to let you view unless your house was on the market. They wouldn't present an offer without an offer on our house and an agreement in principle from the mortgage company and ID checks etc, it still took 2 weeks for the house to be changed to to "under offer"

A colleague was refused a request a view a new build until they had an assessment with the developers advisor despite having a mortgage agreement (I think this may be illegal...)

On the flip side I seemed to have every Tom, Dick and Harry pass though ours, some were very obviously in no position to buy. Its infuriating.

What a complete farce

Same. That’s what happened when I bought my house

What are you on about?! No one has told me anything

Not only is it a waste of everyone's time. But as a buyer I wouldn't be happy handing out bank statements and id docs to numerous estate agents just to find out an offer isn't accepted. They must collect thousands of people's personal information for little reason and wouldn't trust their practices to be robust enough to remove the data when it's no longer needed - when the offer is rejected.

I was more than happy to provide it all for the memorandum of sale to be produced but not before I knew seller was happy to proceed also.

Am stunned that EAs are asking people to pay a viewing fee! Outrageous.

Some EAs are a law unto themselves. Am increasingly grateful we were dealing with such an approachable and efficient one recently.

They could have but they didn’t, and they didn’t have to.
Personally I was not interested in hearing or entertaining any offers where the potential buyer couldn’t supply their evidence with the offer rather than after. It’s a waste of my time and I can dictate the terms of my own sale.
Clearly the seller and EA in OP’s case felt the same.

We also had to provide proof of funds before the agent would put in the offer, what an absolute palaver.

Because the legal/financial checks need to be done after the offer is made/accepted by the solicitors acting for both parties anyway, and is not avoided by adding this additional step - so its quicker just to ask the question and advise them that they will need to evidence their position within a certain timeframe of an offer being accepted. Advising them of this means that they can start lining up the paperwork while the EA proceeds.

As a vendor I want to reduce the number of people traipsing through my home while it’s on sale - if there is a viable offer being made I want to know sooner. I can accept it on the condition that the offeror’s position is validated within 72 hours and decline to take my property of the market until a solicitor has been instructed. This latter path is the one taken by the vendor and EA when buying a property a few weeks ago.

We thought as cash buyers it would be quicker, but in fact it just presents different hoops to jump through (the money laundering ones, specifically).

No chance for a second viewing?! I try on a pair of shoes twice before I buy. And wanting to see proof of funds😂 I’d just slip a not through the vendor’s door and do a private deal.

It isn't. If and when the offer is accepted. That's when legal requirements kick in.
Offer accepted, the house stays on the market until legal checks are complete. The property I am buying was on the market for further 24h while EA was reviewing my evidence, only then it was marked as SSTC. The seller could have continued doing viewings and receiving offers galore at their leisure.

Why would a question suffice? It’s a legal process, people lie all the time. You have to prove thing all through the process, being able to prove your situation if you want to purchase a property really shouldn’t be a big deal.

Wouldn't a simple question by EA suffice?
When I rang to ask for a viewing, they asked me what my situation was and I replied that I had x amount of deposit, a mortgage in principle and no chain. That's all they needed to know to establish whether my offer was "proceedable".

Proving the offer is actually proceedable isn’t really a time waste though. An offer that turns out to be rubbish because X Y or Z is lacking a week later is pointless.
If it’s taken you 10 days to pull together the basic information you needed then that’s really your own doing, this is all stuff you will need during the early stages of the process. You’ve wasted your own time.

I have also known of people literally knocking on the door of the house they wanted to view, saying "we can't get past your estate agent"

Sorry OP that is so frustrating. I’ve just checked and the house I viewed some weeks ago and was pressured to make a best and final on with no second viewing allowed is still on the market with no under offer indication. So there was no reason to be so pushy with me. I think EA are shooting themselves in the foot trying to operate like this. I feel like putting a note through that door telling the owners I WAS a genuine buyer but was put off by their EAs.

That is completely mad. Nobody benefits at all from this ludicrousness. That's 10 days the vendor has lost as well of not knowing what offers are attempting to come in so they can think about possibly lowering their price.

I am so grateful to this thread. It can prepare me for what may lie ahead for me. So I don’t get triggered. I’m thinking in areas where the market remains somewhat buoyant EA are putting all these checks in place from the off and maybe where markets are slower they can afford to take time and get info assembled after offers are made verbally without a plethora of forms to fill just to be allowed to make an offer.