To think a EA can stop a sale?

[Brlla]

I feel our estate agent is messing us around. He mucked up the survey by not having the right set of keys & the blamed me for not phoning up him and making it explicit that I wanted the outbuildings inspected as well as the house. Isn’t this a given that the survey should include all outbuildings?

How much power does an EA have. I think we need to be polite to him otherwise he might scupper the purchase.
We are already £280 out of pocket because he messed up the first survey but I am fuming.

As you're the buyer, the only reason I can think of that might push an EA into scuppering a sale is if he wants to buy the property himself or have a relative buy it. And if he did feel that way, he could have started the purchase process for himself before putting it online.

It's far more likely that he's just made an error and ballsed up the survey through incompetence/being a prat. I'd be furious that he'd blamed me, who has no control over the process, but some people are like that and can't stand to feel they've been an idiot (especially over something that they should be well versed in). Of course the survey should include everything including boundary walls etc, that should be a given.

And don't forget he's not your estate agent working for you, he's the one chosen by the vendor; the vendor is his client, not you.

You're BU I'm afraid, as a previous poster said, the only reason an EA would scupper a sale would be if he or someone he knew wanted it for themselves, and if that were the case they would have put in a low offer, and not put yours forward at all. Just because he's an idiot, it doesn't mean that he will deliberately mess up your purchase. If you have cause to complain then email his Head Office, if it's one of the National chains, if not, then send a Private & Confidential to the manager, unless of course he is the manager, in which case, just tell him what a dick he is!

Oh, and also, if he messes anything else up, contact the Vendor, and tell them that if their agent continues to mess you around, you'll withdraw from the purchase. That should put a rocket up his backside!

You posted about this previously and were advised that the problem was really with the surveyor. If you made it clear to him that you wanted the garage surveyed and he discovered that he didn't have keys to access it why did he not contact the estate agent?

I don't know why you think he would be trying to prevent the sale, unless other issues have occurred? If the sale doesn't happen, he doesn't get paid!

I worked as an EA and to be honest that EA will just want the house sold to gain his commission so I can’t imagine why they’d want to put a stop to the sale. Also, if the EA didn’t have the keys to the outbuildings in the first place then that’s on your seller not the EA.

You are within your rights to call the surveyors back up and get them over to do the outbuildings as you’ve paid for a survey which wasn’t completed. Just make sure you ask the EA to get them from the seller before it’s booked in.

Was the survey a Home Buyers or a mortgage survey? If a mortgage val they don’t really need access in there anyway.