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.

Proving the offer is actually proceedable isn’t really a time waste though. An offer that turns out to be rubbish because X Y or Z is lacking a week later is pointless.
If it’s taken you 10 days to pull together the basic information you needed then that’s really your own doing, this is all stuff you will need during the early stages of the process. You’ve wasted your own time.

Wouldn't a simple question by EA suffice?
When I rang to ask for a viewing, they asked me what my situation was and I replied that I had x amount of deposit, a mortgage in principle and no chain. That's all they needed to know to establish whether my offer was "proceedable".

Why would a question suffice? It’s a legal process, people lie all the time. You have to prove thing all through the process, being able to prove your situation if you want to purchase a property really shouldn’t be a big deal.

It isn't. If and when the offer is accepted. That's when legal requirements kick in.
Offer accepted, the house stays on the market until legal checks are complete. The property I am buying was on the market for further 24h while EA was reviewing my evidence, only then it was marked as SSTC. The seller could have continued doing viewings and receiving offers galore at their leisure.

No chance for a second viewing?! I try on a pair of shoes twice before I buy. And wanting to see proof of funds😂 I’d just slip a not through the vendor’s door and do a private deal.

Because the legal/financial checks need to be done after the offer is made/accepted by the solicitors acting for both parties anyway, and is not avoided by adding this additional step - so its quicker just to ask the question and advise them that they will need to evidence their position within a certain timeframe of an offer being accepted. Advising them of this means that they can start lining up the paperwork while the EA proceeds.

As a vendor I want to reduce the number of people traipsing through my home while it’s on sale - if there is a viable offer being made I want to know sooner. I can accept it on the condition that the offeror’s position is validated within 72 hours and decline to take my property of the market until a solicitor has been instructed. This latter path is the one taken by the vendor and EA when buying a property a few weeks ago.

We thought as cash buyers it would be quicker, but in fact it just presents different hoops to jump through (the money laundering ones, specifically).

We also had to provide proof of funds before the agent would put in the offer, what an absolute palaver.

They could have but they didn’t, and they didn’t have to.
Personally I was not interested in hearing or entertaining any offers where the potential buyer couldn’t supply their evidence with the offer rather than after. It’s a waste of my time and I can dictate the terms of my own sale.
Clearly the seller and EA in OP’s case felt the same.

Am stunned that EAs are asking people to pay a viewing fee! Outrageous.

Some EAs are a law unto themselves. Am increasingly grateful we were dealing with such an approachable and efficient one recently.

Not only is it a waste of everyone's time. But as a buyer I wouldn't be happy handing out bank statements and id docs to numerous estate agents just to find out an offer isn't accepted. They must collect thousands of people's personal information for little reason and wouldn't trust their practices to be robust enough to remove the data when it's no longer needed - when the offer is rejected.

I was more than happy to provide it all for the memorandum of sale to be produced but not before I knew seller was happy to proceed also.

What are you on about?! No one has told me anything

Same. That’s what happened when I bought my house

What a complete farce

When we were looking 2 years ago, they were very relucent to let you view unless your house was on the market. They wouldn't present an offer without an offer on our house and an agreement in principle from the mortgage company and ID checks etc, it still took 2 weeks for the house to be changed to to "under offer"

A colleague was refused a request a view a new build until they had an assessment with the developers advisor despite having a mortgage agreement (I think this may be illegal...)

On the flip side I seemed to have every Tom, Dick and Harry pass though ours, some were very obviously in no position to buy. Its infuriating.

Literally that.
it would appear that many of you haven’t kept up with recent changes in the law and the procedures for buying houses and many of you have been educated on this thread as to what you’ll need to do going forward. that’s a good thing

As a vendor I would far rather know exactly what interest there is and at what level asap. If someone's offer was being withheld from me so I couldn't evaluate it because of a load of red tape I'd be pissed right off.

Were these changes introduced in the last two and a half weeks? Because that's when I last put an offer on a house.

Can we have references to the law you are referring to? Any references to the "procedures for buying houses"?
The only recent change I am aware of is that EAs are now doing AML checks but where does it say that they have to do them before the offer is accepted?

No, because the weren't going to accept my offer anyway. A 2 minute call saying "Hi seller, would you accept an offer of x?" "No not a chance" is a far qucker way of doing it than 10 days of email exchanges and different documents being submitted. Who has benefited from the estate agent gathering many documents from a buyer that the seller will reject anyway?

But it doesn’t matter what the interest level is. I could be interested in buying your house but if I haven’t got any money, there’s no point in me being interested is there? See what I mean
All this messing around in the market just creates extra work for people, including you

Well, you’ve benefited to be fair because then when you want to put the next one in, you’ll be ready

I sold a house recently. I instructed the estate agent not to bother me with any bids/offers that werent proceedable. Your offer isnt even an offer unless you have answered those questions from the estate agent. The fact you cant even be bothered to do it makes it even less of an offer.

I was selling a house. I wasnt wanting to be sat going backwards and forwards with dreamers wanting to see how low i would go in an imaginary negotiation.

House sold, got what i wanted and the buyer was as good as their word. All done in less than 6 weeks.

And what are the chances that it's a complete time waster with no money? Pretty low. Certainly low enough that making me wait days to hear what an offer is no advantage to me in the least. If I am given a low offer I can reject it, reject it but be clear I'm open to further offers or accept it. I can do all of those things whilst the process of verification starts and can accept an offer and say I'm staying on the market until funds are proven etc.

Not letting me hear an offer and decide on it in principle is of no advantage to anyone at all.

Agreed. Having sold in Scotland and bought in England this year, the Scottish system proved far more stressful. Forget what knowledge you had before of how good the Scottish system is, it ‘s all changed for the worse, and that includes the standard of Home Report.

They should only ask for documents once an offer has been accepted. I wouldn’t be sending them confidential info

Sod that, there’s no way I would have given them what I consider very personal and private information.

Thats what solicitors are for once an offer has been accepted, and both parties proceed.