To find these estate agents' tactics quite creepy?

[CruCru]

I live in an area with a lot of estate agents, who send out lots of things asking us if we want to sell or let out our house. This is fair enough (even though it is irritating junk mail).

Recently, though, we've been getting quite a few to say that they urgently need to speak to us about our ongoing house sale or to say that they've noticed we have our house on the market and don't think our agent is doing a very good job. I know that this is a marketing strategy but I still had a microsecond of panic when I wondered whether my house had been put on the market without my knowledge (ridiculous, I know).

That's a bit weird. You could forward it on to their regulatory body but don't know how much of a crap they'll give to be honest.

I wouldn't panic though. Even if somehow your house was marketed - which it won't be - it's not like they can force you to sell it!

YANBU it's madness and time wasting on their part. Here in Australia they knock on your door and it pisses me off so much! I opened the main door the other day, kept the screen door shut as it's safer....and the woman on the other side said "I can hardly see you!" I said "That's right, who are you and what do you want?"

I knew it was a bloody estate agent and I was right! It's a bad thing to do. Elderly people will be made nervous..especially getting letters like yours!

I know - and it really was only a microsecond but it did make me wonder whether I was going mad for that one microsecond.

Imagine that if you were vulnerable and elderly! I'd definitely complain to them AND to the authority they answer to.

We live in rented and still get the "my mummy and daddy are looking to buy your house" "houses are wanted in your street". Load of crap since one house has been up for over a year.

Hmm. Who would I complain to? The property ombudsman?

Is there a house near you that's on the market? Lots of EAs pick up current properties on RM and then try to target that house to get them to switch (happened to us). If Streetview doesn't show the house number, I'm not sure how they'd get it - educated guess? A friend got a load of these letters - house with same number in next road was on the market, but the RM map wasn't clear where each road ended. Obviously if the current agent has a brochure with the full address it's much easier for them to work out!!!

The Property Ombudan takes a dim view of this behaviour:
www.nfopp-regulation.co.uk/media/1043516/tpos-guidance-note-canvassing-for-new-business.pdf

If it continues, I'd find out if they are a member and, if so, report them.

This happens to us all the time! We rent but twice a week we receive postcards from two agents offering to sell our flat. Annoyingly we now need to move and one of the agents is very prominent in our area and all properties locally seem to be listed with them so we'll probably end up renting through them (I have complained about the junk mail though).

In our last home we were in a masionette. The upper floor property was up for sale but as we have a communal garden it wasn't clear from the for sale sign or on tightmove whether it was our or our neighbours property up for sale & whose front door was whose. We then received a letter addressed to us personally (assume EA checked electoral roll) saying the same, that the flat had been undervalued and they could get us more. I wouldn't panic about it, interestingly in our case the masionette took ages to sell and according to zoopla sold for £30k less than the asking price. Imo it was over valued in the first place

Sounds like they just got the address wrong - just bin it.

Well, I have been binning them but they are REALLY persistent. I like the guidance note - thanks for sharing.

Ours is up for sale. I have one estate agent leaving me weekly voicemail asking for us to switch. I managed to catch the last call and call him off till next march.
Two others send us weekly letters telling us what a crap job our estate agent was doing.
A fourth has sent us a Christmas card hand signed by all the staff.
Today I received a mailshot from my stalker caller with a picture of his team receiving an estate agent award begging us to change estate agents.

Glad you found the Guidance Note interesting. This is the longer document that gives an idea of how any decent Agent should be behaving.

As an aside, all my business cards that I use for touting have "this is a marketing message" underneath the "please contact us" and also a disclaimer about potential duel fee liabilities.

As PPs have said, it sounds like your address has accidentally made it onto this Agent's tout list but they should leave you alone the minute you ask them to. In my office we have detailed lists of "do not canvas" addresses and individuals and everything we send is carefully cross-checked against this list by our Administrator before it is posted.

Unfortunately it's a quiet time of year for estate agents so it's traditionally their time for touting for business ready for the new year. There is usually a lot of pressure on them to get new business. It can unfortunately be rather off putting if a company goes into over drive in this manner and they end up being a source of irritation at best. A quick call asking them to leave you alone should suffice and if not then take it further if you feel it's a nuisance.

Op - I suspect that they have a general "are you thinking of selling?" flyer which is sent out to a whole area then they have a more specific one like the one you received which says "we've noticed you are selling" etc. etc. which goes to houses with a board up. Sounds like the flyer template was possibly merged with the wrong recipient list.

Agents have to have proof of identity from a client before putting a house on the market so it would be extremely difficult for anyone to put your house up for sale fraudulently. I can understand why you feel hassled by them though, it sounds rather relentless.

OP it's time for some happy minutes calling said estate agents back as a matter of urgency Demanding to speak to whoever is managing your house sale, so you can find out what this urgent message is. That'll learn em.

I get these all the time. Sadly, I don't think my Landlord would be too happy if I sold