Estate Agent or me?

[lionmummy]

Am trying to buy a flat; it's above an empty shop. When I was negotiating the offer, I had explained the reason that there was no guarantee in who would take the shop downstairs & could end up being a takeaway & therefore wanted to put in a lower offer. I was told by the agent 'no chance that this would happen'. However, decided to do some digging around myself over the w/e on the Council's Planning website & found that there has been a planning application by Dominos Pizza to take the site - this was rejected & now Dominos have an appeal on the decision that will be heard later this month. Sure this would come out in the Solicitors process but I am annoyed with the agent for not mentioning a sausage on this when we viewed or at any point through negotiation & month into the buying process.

If the shop is a separate property altogether, then it would be up to the buyer to do their own research, as you have done.

They should know about this, and have been truthfull that it had been turned down but had gone to appeal. Their getout will probably be, it was turned down so not going to happen.
Have you had an offer accepted yet? If so go back and say you want to reduce it because of the risk of Domino's winning their appeal, or you may need to pull out and wait and see.

Thanks. When I played dumb with the agent, she gave me chapter & verse about there being an application in x month & an appeal in y month & told me to look on the COuncil's website to find out more. When I asked her if she knew who the application was from she said that she didn't know but for me to look on the website. Her 'view' is that it will be turned down but no guarantee here from my perspective.

Estate agents have a default setting of "say anything to get the property sold even if it's a lie". They can get away with this because their ombudsman is ineffective and powerless. I caught an estate agent breaking their code of conduct and all I got was a letter admitting they'd done it and pretty much thumbing their noses at me because they knew there was nothing I could do about it. If anyone cares, it was Rooney & Co... not that it makes much difference who it was as in my experience they're almost all the same.

Don't bother asking the agent, they have no legal responsibilities. What you need to do is direct all questions to the seller through your solicitor i.e. get your solicitor to ask the seller's solicitor.

the answer should then be legally binding, ie you could sue if you find out after sale that the seller lied. This should mean the seller thinks twice before lying to you.

Having said all that, when it comes to planning applications near to the property, the buyer is expected to do their own research rather than ask the seller (a good solicitor should do this for you).

It is not up to the estate agent to answer that question, they are selling you the property above the empty unit.

I do wish people wouldn't always blame estate agents for everything property related.

Your solicitor is the person to direct that question to, and they direct it to the vendor. The vendor is under no obligation to answer it. In fact they may not know either.

It is up to you to do your own research, or instruct your solicitor to do so, which you have done.

Dont bash the estate agent.

V. stupid agent really - I doubt a mortgage company would give a mortgage on a flat if it was unclear what shop was going to be underneath it (they are quite sniffy about that kind of thing and fast food shops are usually a no-no) so unless you are a cash buyer, the agent risks the sale falling through at the last minute after the mortgage co's survey comes back and they refuse to lend.

They do shoot themselves in the foot I think. I was once looking for a house and made it very clear to the agent that a key criteria was that it shouldn't be near a main road. They still tried to make me look round a house where the ONLY access was straight off a 6-lane A-road. Did they think I wouldn't notice?!

Am not bashing agents, I think they have a difficult job to keep buyers and sellers happy, whilst acknowledging that they work on behalf of the vendor. I think that it's such a fundamental thing to have known that this application/appeal was going on early in the process, it clearly impacts the ability now to get a mortgage so have gone through the mortgage application and paid for all this as planning research/mortgage application process was running concurrently.