Estate agent - is this shady?

[amijustbeingsuspicious]

An estate agent wanting to sell our property quoted us 160£ + VAT for the EPC. Spoke to another estate agent who says it’s 90.

is there an actual reason for the discrepancy, or are the estate agents looking to make some money off the top? If so, is this standard practice? Feels a bit cheeky

Thank you for this. Deceitful is the word!

It's because the estate agent doesn't do the EPC themselves, they are referring you to a company that will pay them commission for the referral, most of them do this, its cheaper to find your own local EPC person directly, just tell them, you will do your own. All they need is the details directly available on the government website and that doesn't cost them anything to find out.

I've had experience of estate agents doing really dodgy stuff so this sort of thing pales into insignificance by comparison. I agree it's annoying, though, and you should vote with your feet if it's unacceptable to you.

I've just paid £50 for an EPC..

I actually just wanted to update on here to say the estate agent has turned out to be extremely petulant. We are trying to buy a house from him, and:

1. when we told him we were using a different agent to sell, he literally hung up the phone and
2. he has repeatedly said he thinks he would be able to sell us the house we want IF we use them. Eg the seller would also really like it.

feels like bullying.

They can ask for what they like- shop around - we had one rental house done in London last year f0r 70 quid - LA wanted 130 - average price was around the hundred

Also he was trying to say the photos would cost 500£ and the photographer who came today said it’s half that

Do not use the same EA as the seller. It might be better for them, but it won't be for you. Sadly I have experience of this, but luckily for me, I had a solicitor who wasn't afraid to put a rocket up them.

What happened in your experience to make it worse ?

@amijustbeingsuspicious the EA smarmed round our buyer to get them to sign up to sell their place in the days when you could put in an offer before you had gone on the market. Because they got another fee from them and weren't getting anything more from us, they were given the red carpet treatment. Unfortunately for us, MiL chose them as it was her place, but DH owned it. They were "a good local film" in her eyes. They were lying bastards in mine. The best was when I rang up to say that unless the buyer exchanged that day, we were pulling out and they replied they only took instructions from Mrs Fan (MiL). I'm also Mrs Fan as I took DH's surname and took great delight in telling them that I was Mrs Fan, I had DH's authority which they knew, and to get onto their "favoured" client pronto to get the exchange happening. Solicitor rang 25 minutes later to thank me for prodding them into action. Massive complaint about their unprofessional behaviour and half the fees written off. As a result, when we sold our own house a few years later, we did it without an EA.

Oh wow - thanks for sharing! I definitely think I’ll be writing a review about these guys when this is over. You’d think people would just want to sell but they do seem to want to play God a little 😀