AIBU to not trust my estate agent is acting in my best interest?

[Mary959]

I thought that estate agents acted for the sellers interests - especially given that it is the seller that ultimately pays them.

As you can imagine, I was therefore quite concerned to receive the following paragraph included in a reply from my estate agent. I had asked him to put the property back on the market after I verbally accepted an offer of £10k below asking price. The estate agent tried everything he could to dissuade me from putting it back on - despite it being my right to have the property listed until contracts have been exchanged. Eventually they called the buyer and they increased their offer to the asking price so long as it remains off of the market.

It was the Estate agent that provided the valuation initially, and I am concerned that they may have undervalued it. The house received this offer only two days after it being on the market (the buyer has listed their house up with the same estate agency).

Am I getting a bad deal here? Why would the Estate Agent try so hard to dissuade me from re-listing the property? They are meant to follow my instructions and act in my interests - not the buyers!

This is the part of their response that caused me so much concern (below) :

“The property remains listed as SSTC (Sold Subject to Contract) online, so it can still be tracked publicly. However, the buyer has already incurred costs by instructing solicitors and completing anti-money laundering checks, so it would be unfair to fully remarket the property at this stage. We only marked it as SSTC after those steps were completed.”

Small claims court is an absolute joke of a threat, you’re right you can pull out for whatever reason you want until exchange.
your estate agent is supposed to act within your interests only but honestly will only act within the interests of getting your house sold quickly for commission.
It’s standard for the house to be marked as sstc after verbal acceptance, and it looks like you’ve learned your lesson, just don’t agree to anything you’re not comfortable with.
you’re in a very strong position for the remainder of this OP. If they buyer has a bridging loan they will want this to go as smoothly and quickly as possible. The interest rates are high.
have you found your new house? Expect pressure for this to move quickly. Once you’ve secured a place the admin and chasing can transfer to your lawyer and EA and you can instruct them however you want. Don’t be tied in to agreeing to an exchange date - even “verbally, something to aim for” before you’re ready. Don’t be surprised if after the survey on yours the buyers reduce the offer by £10k because of whatever they find. And don’t agree to the reduction. I would honestly let them progress as quick as possible, find your place but don’t be in a hurry to put money down as then you’ll feel tied.

You can’t accept an offer then go bwck on
yjr market. You are being unfair

£10k under is good in this diabolical market

you sound like a nightmare customer

Prices are falling op. A zoopla valuation is an automated algorithm based simply on how long you've owned it. Our zoopla valuation was really high yet it took 9 months to get an offer well below asking.

If you aren't happy to commit & proceed with an offer, do not accept it. You don't just accept one "for now" until you can get a better one or why would the buyer spend thousands on solicitors and surveys?

You've agreed to sell the house to them at that price. Do so or back out now not later.

For the estate agent, they want 2 things: their percentage for selling is priority but also they don't want things sat on their books. If they sell in 2 days they get their money for far less time. They can also emblazon 'sold in 2 days' in their window/in their advertising. So it's understandable that they'd want you to stick to the deal. However, only you can make that decision.

You're the total nightmare here!

I had this - house valued at overs over £200k, the EA pressured me to accept an offer of £200k, when there were multiple buyers interested.

I had to force them to go back to the other bidders, they eventually asked for best and final offers - it then sold for £223k.

I would have lost £23k if I'd listened to them!

They don't care about getting the best price for you - they only care about securing a buyer and getting it through as easily as possible to get their commission.

Is it that the Zoopla estimate has made you think you can get another 50k? They're not reliable at all, how could they be. If three estate agents have given you a similar price, that's very likely what your house is worth.

That said, the small claims stuff is weird and would make me assume there's something about that buyer which benefits the estate agent. Up to you whether you want a quick sale, or to back out and wait for someone else with a different agent.

Marking the property as SSTC is the normal process IME. I would be pissed off as a buyer if the sellers kept the property on the market after accepting my offer, it basically means that you haven't really committed to the sale and are still looking for buyers.

It's wasting everyone's time, and does reflect badly on the agent.

The threat of small claim court and pressure is weird though. Indeed I wouldn't trust them for that.

I forgot to mention though - Zoopla valuations are not worth anything at all. They're notoriously unreliable.

The best way to value is doing a deep dive into your exact neighbourhood, seeing what's sold, houseprices.io is very helpful.

Estate agents will act in your interests insofar as their commission will be a % of the sale price if/when the sale eventually goes through. Your interests and theirs are thereby tied together. By doing a modicum of extra work and getting your sale price upped by £10,000 the agent earned themselves hopefully an extra £100-£200 in eventual commission, assuming the sale goes through.

The sale will not go through and they will not earn a penny if you muck your buyers around and prove yourself a nightmare to deal with such that your buyers walk away. They job now is to keep the sale on track and make sure it now goes through at thr agreed price. Trying to keep marketing the property to attract a different buyer once this buyer has already incurred thousands of pounds of legal costs is utterly shitty behaviour. If you weren't willing to sell at the agreed price you should have declined the offer. Once accepted, costs are incurred on the basis of trusting your word.

A house is only ever worth what a willing buyer is prepared to pay to a willing seller. If you prove yourself to be too untrustworthy to do business with, by behaving like that, no one will want to do business with you and your house will reduce in value.

Think about it - if they do know the buyer and the buyer's keen - likely sale will proceed without too much hassle.

This. How would you like to have your offer accepted on a property then it still be marketed to others? If you're paying out for surveyors and solicitors particularly. Your buyer could lose a lot of money. Either accept the offer or don't.

I don’t think you are U, @Mary959 .

In the current market, agents are desperate to close ANY deal at almost any price, and as buyers are scarcer than sellers so they are doing more to keep buyers happy.

However that doesn’t mean you were wrong to ask them to continue listing it. Just because a buyer has had an offer accepted and completed their solicitor’s AML, it doesn’t mean they will follow through with their offer. I have had three different buyers accept offers and allegedly instruct solicitors in the last year, and all have later ghosted us or in one case attempted to renegotiate the price for no good reason, which has cost me a fortune in legal fees. Interestingly, while buyers can insure themselves for failed transaction costs, sellers cannot (or at least only up to about £1500 max, which is nothing).

The fourth and last time, I insisted that I wasn’t going to accept an offer without the buyer agreeing to sign an exclusivity agreement. This means that you (seller) can continue to list the property and conduct new viewings until the buyer has signed the agreement and paid a deposit (in this case about 2%) but you must take it off the market once they do. If they don’t go on to complete the purchase at a specific price within a specified time period, you get the deposit money back.

The agents of course hated this idea and said no buyer would sign up to it - while also urging me to accept a low ball offer from Buyer A whom I already knew to be flaky.

But I stood my ground and for me it did work.
I accepted an offer at full asking price from Buyer B who agreed to the EA, but I insisted on continuing to market the property while their lawyers messed around quibbling with the wording of the EA. In that following week, the agents did another three viewings and received two more offers. Buyers A and C both agreed to sign the agreement, and both also ended up offering 20-25k more than asking.

I went with Buyer C in the end because they were very motivated to complete quickly and so the EA suited them as much as it suited me.

Yes, you are being unreasonable. You can’t still market your house after accepting an offer.

It is also a good offer in today’s market.

You know what. To some you sound like a nightmare but as non Brit I am very much for bringing some kind of contract in from the beginning. So kudos there.
As pp said, this system is laughable.
Everyone spending money and time with absolutely no contract for months on end is ridiculous system. I have experience from couple of other countries and this would be quite unthinkable.
Explaining to our families and friends abroad (numerous countries) that when we were buying house it was still not done deal until towards the end when exchange happens was frustrating and hilarious. It just didn't compute for them.

But considering the system we are in, OP is U imho about wanting to still market fully after accepting offer. No matter how agent behaved. That's basically the only bit where I don't agree with you.

if someone says "will you accept £x and you say " yes" why would you then go back on your word? thats shitty from you!

How are you going to feel when you make an offer on your next house, the seller accepts your offer, and while you are getting the legal wheels turning they sell to someone else?

The only perspn behaving badly here is you

Have your potential buyers actually sold their own property OP?

I've had good and bad EA's and am convinced on one occasion they were definitely in cohorts with the buyer, but we wanted a quick efficient sale and it was certainly that! We also, once property, was sold got pressured for the EA fee, but I simply adhered to the contract (it works both ways) and made them wait till it was due!

sounds like the EA is being ethical. I think you sound awful. If you agree an offer, why on earth would you continue to market and actively try and sell to someone else. Don’t accept an offer ypu don’t want. Other peoples lives are not yours to toy with. Having yourself a ‘back up’ is disgusting. You had several EA valuations, that should provide you with peace of mind. The fact your buyers increased their offer is good luck and shows how keen they are and you’re more likely to have a successful sale. So many fall apart at last minute and that could be disastrous for you if you then offer and buy somewhere. But hey, if you feel so hard done to then at least be clear and turn down current offer completely and pull out of EA and go your own way. You might make a few grand more, it may cost you that in other fees and you may lose a few grand more. Who knows but you’ll feel in control which you do not now.

Zoopla always overvalues.

What length is your contract with the agent? If you aren’t confident that they are acting in your interests, I’d remove the property from the market and relist it after the initial contract would be at an end.

It is possible that the agent and the prospective purchaser have a connection and I would be wary of talk of bridging loans.

Of course you can if you're not in Scotland, the prospective buyer can back out for any reason as can the seller. Subject to contract means exactly that, there is no contract to sell or buy in place, the contract price can be renegotiated at any time, it a pain but that's how English law works, otherwise buyers are committed to buy when the survey says don't or their mortgage falls through, likewise the seller is committed when they may not have an onward property or are unable to remortgage. It is unusual to actively market, but why else would windows and websites be full of sstc properties, indeed Rightmove has a box to select sstc properties.

I hope they do more undercover work on estate agents. I worked for some years ago and they were the most bent load of men I have ever encountered. Their sales figures and commission always come first. They lie, cheat and deceive people regularly to get their £. Showing people houses with known issues and not declaring it was something so commonplace as well as beating down sellers prices to get buyers in because they'd sign up to their mortgage schemes which gave them more commission, having friends who were developers they'd give first dibs to on properties with land while telling the seller it was worth a fraction of the price...it was appalling and such a toxic environment to work in.

This. Some are slightly worse than others but they are all cut from the same cloth. Never met one that I trusted and I’ve bought and sold properties in several countries. You just need to stand up to them and not be bullied into accepting a low ball offer, by all means change agents and put it back on the market but you’ll find they are all the same. It’s their job to get their commission and in this market they’ll be after fast commissions rather than maximising the sale price/getting a slightly higher commission.

“the estate agent actually threatened me the buyer possibly going to the small claims court as they had instructed solicitors and paid for money laundering checks”

This is arrant nonsense. My DSis actually instructed a solicitor and paid for a survey - and the sale fell through. It happens, and there’s nothing to be done about it. Your estate agent sounds pushy to the max.

They are meant to do what is right not what a sellers demand