Putting an a house offer has become such a hassle

[AvacadoChic]

I've moved house several times over my life, the most recent about 7 years ago. I've been looking at a new place and expected the process to be the same as always but this time around it's dragged on and we haven't even got as far as putting an offer in yet.

We saw a house, and phoned the estate agent with a low offer. The estate agent got back to me by email the next day and said that I have to fill in a form with a lot of questions and documents to upload. I didn't have time to look at the form until the following day and then I saw that it would be quite time consuming, so emailed back asking if they could get an idea if the offer would be accepted, as it was a lot of work if the seller would say a flat out no. The eatate agent refused but said that we didn't have to fill out the form, just send him some documents. I sent the documents and the he replied asking for more documents. I've sent those and I'm waiting for his reply. This process has taken more than a week and I don't have any idea if the seller if willing to accept low offers. It would have taken them 30 seconds to ring up the seller to see if he would even entertain our offer. It just seems such a pointless waste of time.

In the past, I've always put in an offer overr the phone and only when it's accepted does all the paperwork begin. It's a lot of extra work for a house that I might not even get.

This is a myth, the law says that is the default UNLESS they have a counter instruction in writing from the client - for example if the client emails them and says don't send me offers under x or those without a sale agreed, the agent has no obligation to pass such offers on.

Ok sorry everyone I’ve just checked and this is actually a £40 fee payable to the estate agent if I do the transaction (which I’m not) it’s for AML which is apparently anti money laundering. Who knew.

You’re literally wasting peoples time.
They’ve told you you need to show it now to proceed with that Estate Agent which is excellent practice. I applaud the Estate Agent.

Yes that's fine if your friend is going to accept the offer, but if she thinks the offer is too low, why make them jump through hoops if she's only going to reject the offer anyway? It's just wasting people's time.

It's the EA who is wasting people's time.

If a property is on for £300k and my top line is £280k, which is a reasonable offer, but I have to go through all the checks just to be told "No, won't accept below £292k" when they could have told me that 10 minutes after making the offer then that's a waste of everyone's time.

Sending these things is normal, after your offer is accepted.

I wouldn’t want to be sending all that personal data to an estate agent without an accepted offer. Nor as an estate agent would I want the risks of managing all that data for everyone who makes an offer. Nightmare from a data protection standpoint.

If you are proceedable, I’d consider putting an offer through the letterbox, just for spite. But if would be a best and final offer. Don’t waste your time if not proceedable.

That said, estate agent sounds like a nightmare to work with, so I’d probably avoid.

I've heard of that round here too. But not everyone wants/needs to sell in order to buy !!!!

In that case you need to be able to offer proof of funds.

I think it’s normal these days. When I sold 2 years ago the EA said they wouldn’t show anyone around that hasn’t already accepted an offer on their house. (Severely disabled son so didn’t want time wasters) I accepted an offer, all went along fine, my offer was accepted on our dream house then to find out our buyers never had the money or even a house to sell! They were waiting on assumed inheritance from a dead uncle! I also had 3 offers from people that hadn’t even put their house on the market, had just come for a nosey but loved the house. Thankfully I found another buying in time but the whole process took nearly a year!

Goodness this anti money laundering thing has crept up on us. My friend had various family money handed down to her which she put on a well known investment platform. Was all ticking along great until the platform itself investigated her for money laundering. She’s had to do so much paperwork to prove the sources (her old dear relatives) and now she’s moving her money to another platform as it p’d her off so much. But maybe this is just the modern way and everyone is under scrutiny. Seems a bad way to treat honest folk.

Your friend is naïve, she’ll have to prove the source of her funds on the new platform. Now instead of doing it once she’ll instead have to do it twice.

this doesn't sound normal. i bought a new property last year and literally just offered over the phone as you say you have previously

We didn’t have any of this OP, we have just recently bought, and when we put an offer in the estate agent just asked about our finances, chain etc. and then when it was accepted we completed an ID check and sent our AIP and proof of funds to begin the process. We did not provide any details until after the offer was accepted.

This is also my experience

And if you don’t even have the 280,000 then I wouldn’t be picking up the phone to the vendor

But that would take just a few minutes. At which point the vendor can say "nope" and that's the end of it. No hassle for anyone. Or the vendor can say "Sure. But I want to keep having viewings till I know they are proceedable". At which point the vendor isn't losing anything, and the potential buyer can then get the ball rolling to secure the offer when it is actually worth them doing so.

Far more efficient all round.

Sounds like "due diligence" to me.

I sold & bought last year, & thought it was quite reasonable that the seller's E.A. asked about my property & funding any discrepancy before making an appointment to view.

Apart from proving my identity, I was not asked for any proof of funds.

Yes that’s true.

I nearly lost the will to live buying a house last year. They want proof of funds/mortgage offer before they'll accept an offer, which I don't recall ever being asked for before.

Then, because I'd been gifted money from 2 different sources, the anti money laundering process was so intrusive. I understand why but the amounts of info I had to send was crazy, including my divorce certificate to prove my xh was my xh because he'd sent £500 to my account, once!

Yes - money laundering checks are significant now. We were cash buyers but had to prove where money had come from. The solicitor guided us through this but it was a little invasive and involved showing months/years of investment certificates and mortgage info on unrelated properties. Might also explain why conveyancing fees are now so high!

Well the estate agent finally accepted all my paperwork and sent the offer to the seller. Less than 5 minutes later, the seller said the offer was too low. That was a massive waste of 10 days of everyone's time for something that could have been resolved in under 5 minutes. It's not just my time they are wasting, the estate agent has wasted so much of their own time. Imagine if every house gets 10 offers, only one can be accepted so the estate agent is spending ten times the amount of time needed on this. It's such an inefficient way to work.

I am so grateful to this thread. It can prepare me for what may lie ahead for me. So I don’t get triggered. I’m thinking in areas where the market remains somewhat buoyant EA are putting all these checks in place from the off and maybe where markets are slower they can afford to take time and get info assembled after offers are made verbally without a plethora of forms to fill just to be allowed to make an offer.

That is completely mad. Nobody benefits at all from this ludicrousness. That's 10 days the vendor has lost as well of not knowing what offers are attempting to come in so they can think about possibly lowering their price.

Sorry OP that is so frustrating. I’ve just checked and the house I viewed some weeks ago and was pressured to make a best and final on with no second viewing allowed is still on the market with no under offer indication. So there was no reason to be so pushy with me. I think EA are shooting themselves in the foot trying to operate like this. I feel like putting a note through that door telling the owners I WAS a genuine buyer but was put off by their EAs.

I have also known of people literally knocking on the door of the house they wanted to view, saying "we can't get past your estate agent"