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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Did you thank/ buy a gifts when moving house for your estate agents/ solicitors etc?

135 replies

badaboomed · 09/06/2022 17:03

Hello, We are hopefully completing on a house tomorrow.

Increasingly im seeing examples of people giving people involved in their house sale some form of thank you gift

Is this the norm? Will our estate agent/ solicitor/ mortgage broker feel we are terribly ungrateful if we just pay them as normal?

OP posts:
NewPapaGuinea · 09/06/2022 17:39

Their thank you gift is the thousands of pounds you give them for naff all work 😂

Allthegoodnamesarechosen · 09/06/2022 17:40

Stayed friends with two,out of three of the estate agents we bought and sold with in France, (although they gave us the presents, not the other way round!). The notaire also became a friend, but that is much more the case there, the community tends to be more close knit and you would meet them in the supermarket or restaurant, so courtesy was expected. I wouldn’t have given the notaire a présent, though, he’s a bit of an authority figure .

Most English conveyancers/ solicitors were just an arms length relationship. We did write a note to the one who was particularly efficient , with permission to use it as an endorsement.

English estate agents? Falls about laughing…..

emsyj37 · 09/06/2022 17:40

I don't think it's standard, but we did take a card and a big box of chocolate biscuits to the solicitors as we had used them several times and they were very efficient. I sent a card to the seller's estate agent (not to ours, who were perfectly fine and did everything required but no special efforts particularly) - she was absolutely tireless in brokering the deal and just patiently worked away at us and the seller for several months to get to an agreed price. Lovely lady. She rang me on receiving it to gush about how kind it was to send it. I made sure it went to her by name and not the slimy git in charge of the branch.

godmum56 · 09/06/2022 17:46

I sent a bottle of wine once when the solicitor pulled it out of the fire for us the day we were supposed to complete and move. We were sat in an empty house hovering over the phone (in the days before mobiles) .

HerRoyalNotness · 09/06/2022 17:51

Nope. But when we bought our house in the US the agent bought us a gift. A brown vase which was not my taste at all, she said it would go lovely with our house. At the time it was all military greens and browns. I painted it all a blue grey in the first 2 weeks. Total waste of money to get us anything other than a bottle of wine. Which is probably do if I was inclined to gift to them

annonymousse · 09/06/2022 17:51

No. EA I paid them shedloads of money to do their (in our case) very easy job. And the conveyancers were recommended by the EA and were absolutely diabolical and if I could have refused to pay them I would have never mind buy them a gift or give a thank you card.

Regularsizedrudy · 09/06/2022 17:52

Lol fuck no

Testina · 09/06/2022 17:52

Fuck no!

WombatNo12 · 09/06/2022 17:54

I wouldn't usually (we buy & sell a lot) but the last estate agent I used was utterly fabulous. She worked her arse off & her communication was fantastic. I had a pretty shit, albeit cheap solicitor & she just chased them relentlessly whilst being reasonable.

Even my tight DH was impressed & he managed to spent my milestone b'day buying her chocolate. I couldn't disagree!

DorothyZbornakIsAQueen · 09/06/2022 17:56

Wtf!! No way. I cocouldn'wait to stop dealing with the money for old rope, lazy bastards!!

Cookie79 · 09/06/2022 17:59

No as others have said we’ve paid handsomely for their services. But I gave the EA an excellent review on Google and Facebook as they did do a good job.

Toddlerteaplease · 09/06/2022 18:00

I sent my mortgage advisor a thank you card. As he was really helpful at guiding me through. Sent my landlady who sold me the house some flowers.

Hugasauras · 09/06/2022 18:01

I sent a thank you card as both solicitor and broker were very good. No gift though.

JesusMaryAndJosephAndTheWeeDon · 09/06/2022 18:11

As a solicitor gifts are not expected or normal. In fact they can be a bit of a pain as there are rules about what you can accept, and often multiple people are working on one project and gifts can't be split.

A great review or testimonials would be very much appreciated (we keep them all, and they can even be used at appraisal).

If you really want to do something more than that then go for chocolate or biscuits for the team to share.

Thingsthatgo · 09/06/2022 18:12

We bought our EA a bottle of decent whiskey. He is a local, independent agent who managed to wangle us a superb deal, saved us £££ and pulled a miracle out of the bag to get us the house of our dreams.
I did offer him our firstborn, but he went for the whiskey. We also sent a card to our solicitor who was speedy and always contactable, and got us over the line in time for the stamp duty holiday.

Chaoslatte · 09/06/2022 18:15

No. Unless they really go above and beyond then the fee is enough. The EA I’ll reward with my repeat business when we sell. The conveyancer… not so much.

KrisAkabusi · 09/06/2022 18:17

TheKeatingFive · 09/06/2022 17:04

No. Didn't even occur to me.

Exactly this! I paid them thousands each, why would I give them anything else?!

Topseyt123 · 09/06/2022 18:19

No!!!! Bonkers idea. We paid them thousands to provide a service, which they did. Nothing else required unless money burns a hole in your pocket!

everythingissoexpensivenow · 09/06/2022 18:27

I did but she saved us thousands. The seller asked for several thousands more for the property days before we exchanged or he would pull out. I was willing to go with it but EA said no and called his bluff. She was right he still sold for original price. I bought about a £50-60 gift to thank her. I hope she didn't think that was a strange thing for me to do.

123sunshine · 09/06/2022 18:35

No wouldn’t dream of it. Paying their fees and thank you and review of a great service is more than sufficient. My current estate agent is absolutely diabolical and I have had words with them the last 2 days, they have lied and withheld information. I’ll be so relieved to get moved and have the painful process over.

Blueshimmer · 09/06/2022 18:38

No. I wrote them a nice review online and thanked them in an email, but that was all. They did a decent job but nothing spectacular.

Nothappyatwork · 09/06/2022 18:40

Absolutely not the solicitor was lucky we didn’t suit them, the mortgage broker I’m never use again as long as I live and I’m happy to name and shame. the estate agents were fabulous but I do think using them next time I move is quite enough reward for them they did get paid after all.

ZigZagZen · 09/06/2022 18:43

No

BigBadBoom · 09/06/2022 18:47

Not solicitors, no, I've never been terribly impressed with ones we've used. But I bought the guys that renovated our house bottles of spirits. We recently had the roof replaced too, and I wanted to get them something but they refused - said that us chatting to them and keeping them in coffee and biscuits all day was more than they usually got! But I did it because they had been so excellent and pleasant to have around. Have had some other awful experiences - they get nada 😂

chiffchaffchiff · 09/06/2022 18:49

When I worked at a law firm the conveyancing solicitors were the only ones who regularly received gifts. I was very jealous. It was always appreciated but never expected. Easily less than half of their clients got them gifts so unless you have money to splash I wouldn't worry about it.