To think this is very bad of the estate agents

[LancashireButterPie]

DH and I are looking to downsize.
We have seen the perfect cottage, not far from our DDs family (handy for childcare as it's currently taking us 40 mins each way).
We rang up to view it and the estate agent refused to let us as she said "An offer has been made and I'm sure it will be accepted".
DH and I wouldn't be making an offer, we would happily pay full asking price. Also we are lucky to have enough in savings to purchase, without selling our own home first although we obviously would at some point.
I feel for the vendors as much as ourselves, would it be unreasonable to push a note through their letterbox informing them what's going on?
It's been two weeks since the estate agent last rebuffed us and the house is still on the market.

I do not see what you have to lose with popping a note through.

I was told no Saturday viewing which was with distance work and school only time we could do - the reason given was odd it wasn't the vendors it was estate agent claiming they didn't do veiwing on a Saturday. Pleaded case with as it turned out the owner who spoke to vendors who peferred Saturday veiwings - owner was very nice and told us it had highligted staffing misunderstanding about job - ie he wasn't there Saturdays and staff weren't doing parts of their job.

@LancashireButterPie we are in the middle of the buying / selling process right now. FWIW we have had a number of offers but some way below the asking price so we have turned them down. We absolutely are still open to viewings and in the meantime potential buyers are welcome to increase their offers. Once we have accepted an offer, our position will change, but posters suggesting we shouldn't be open to viewings because someone has made an offer are living in cloud cuckoo land.

Conversely, we have made an offer on a property which the vendors have said isn't quite enough. DH and I are discussing whether we want to offer more, so I guess that could be described as 'active negotiations'. It never even crossed our minds that the estate agents would stop showing other people round,. of course they're not going to do that! Their job is to get the best price they can for their clients.

Incidentally, we have been told by our agents that they are legally obliged to.inform us, in writing, of any offer they receive.for our property. They can't second guess any reasons we might have for preferring one offer over another, even if it is lower. That seems to be where the agent you are dealing with is not acting in the best interests of his client and therefore sounds dodgy.

Sorry, didn’t answer your original question, OP! Yes, definitely put a note through. We were in exactly the same position as you, shut out of a sale and the vendor had no idea, but because it was a probate sale we had no way of contacting the family directly. It was a beautiful old house which we ultimately found out had been sold for way less than we’d been prepared to offer, and the buyer knocked it down and put up a hideous new build.

I know for a fact the agent received a sweetener to push that one through. Unfortunately I have a lot of stories about the dishonesty and greed of estate agents.

Is the house empty or does the owner still live there, if you love it that much I'd go knock on their door tbh

If it’s someone who’s very naive and trusting, for whatever reason (a neighbour of mine was a prime example) they very likely see the EA as ‘such a nice young man!’ who’ll have been sweet talking them from the word go, and will v likely warm them not to trust any offers that don’t directly come through him. ‘You can’t trust anybody nowdays…’ etc.

The dodgy EA in my pp was well spoken, was very friendly and chatty when we were waiting to view the property. He actually told me that his father was a vicar!

Spot on.

I was an EA for a few years in the 1980s. They had all sorts of dubious practices, including not marketing properties because they wanted to sell them to property developers that they were in cahoots and lying to vendors in order get them to accept low or reduced offers to make sure they got the commissions on sales further up the chain.

Definitely put the note through the door, OP, the sellers should at least know what the EA is telling people.

Please put a note through the door or knock on the door and explain your situation. I recently found out that our new neighbours were blocked from seeing the house next door by the EA and they put a note through the door - up until this point the sellers didn’t know of their existence. They got the house in the end but there was definitely something dodgy going on with the EA.

The offer could have been above asking price, by a proceedable buyer. They wouldn't then accept an offer until that's offer was verified, depending on agent/buyer that could take a few days.

The seller may have asked the agent to stop viewings until that offer is verified.

You would be surprised how many people who view say they are proceedable but in reality are not. I asked my agent to screen buyers, but we still had those who turned up for viewings, which I did myself. I didn't tell them it was my property, generally asked questions as I showed them the house. At least 3 had not even put their house on the market yet were telling me it would be a low offer as so much work needed doing.

Put a note through the. Sellers door, don't say anything about offer, just say hope you are being served well by your agent, they wouldn't let me view despite the property not being under offer. You just wanted them to be aware. Put your name and mobile.

Sometimes agents have a hidden agenda, e.g. they could be marketing the purchasers property too. I know someone who experienced this issue

I had a house on the market with an online estate agent. It was a competitively priced house and similar one's on the same estate were selling. I got no viewings. 2 relatives posed as interested buyers and contacted the agent to ask for a viewing and the agent just ignored them. The house was not sold obviously.

Some of these online agents are just a scam, especially if you pay a fixed up front fee.

Go round and knock on the door if the sellers are still living there.

I was an EA several years ago and can confirm that dodgy deals went on. I gave the two guys in my office a piece of my mind about this and then left the company! I also received threats to harm me if I mentioned it to Head Office.

And gazump someone who got there first and has an offer accepted? That's not ethical.

Please do contact the vendor directly ASAP. There are some terrible estate agents out there. It might be that they have someone who is interested who is also selling their house via that EA.

This happened to friends of ours. They were told they'd received 2 offers on their house and accepted one. A week later, another person who had viewed put a note through the door saying they were upset their offer hadn't been accepted and would be happy to discuss a higher offer. The EA had never even put that offer to the sellers!

I also faced pressure to use an EAs linked legal team as "the seller is only accepting offers made with a mortgage decision in principle that has been arranged by our team". I emailed them asking them to clarify and indicating I believed this was against the law; immediately got a call back saying there'd been a misunderstanding and my offer had been sent to the seller...

Yes! I was phoned at home once I'd made the decision not to return because of the corruption. My DP was Detective Sergeant at the time and had a 'quiet word' but I did report it to HO and the guy lost his job.

Are you in Scotland?

Estate agent here, until the memorandum of sale is issued it will show as available on portals.
Also I have vendors who once have accepted an offer no longer allow viewings especially if they live there and cba putting the hoover round each time. Obviously not all of them but most

letter to EA and direct to vendor saying you phoned to make an offer at x price on x date and are really to proceed and the EA would not let you view or pass your offer to seller and could you know why not

eg

Dear Owner of Property Lovely Cottage main road,
We hope you don’t mind us contacting you directly. We are looking to downsize to the area to be closer to our daughter's family to help with childcare (we currently commute 40 minutes each way). We have fallen in love with your beautiful cottage from the marketing.
We contacted Estate Agent two weeks ago to arrange a viewing, but we were informed that an offer had been made and we were not permitted to view or put forward our interest.
As we see the property is still on the market, we wanted to reach out to you directly to express our position. We are completely chain-free, have the funds readily available in savings to purchase without selling our current home first, and are willing to pay your full asking price of £ x.

We wanted to ensure you are aware of our interest, as we would hate for you to miss out on a clean, full-asking-price offer from proceedable buyers. If you are open to letting us view the property, or if you wish to discuss this with your agent, please let us know.
Warmest regards,
Me
My phone number xxxxxx
My email xxxxxx

push it through letter box or send it by post to vendor first class.

This once happened to us. A beautiful house came on market at like £300 K and we were cash buyers. The estate agent said it had gone and refused to let us view. It was a phone call by us. 6 months later it was still on and we proceeded and exchanged with another house and moved to the village. Met owner and he said no interest and he had just lowered the price (handy) and the person that did buy it in the end was brother in law of one of the EA. I was furious. So I would always have a paper trail.

Well all though another poster has accused me of telling lies but I'll repeat a recent experience.
I had our 5 bed house valued by three agents. There was a £95k difference from one agent who told me it needed 'gutting'. The clue was in the expression 'if it was mine blah blah'
I found out he had lived across the road 6 years ago and made a sizeable profit on selling.
Fast forward a few weeks and the same agent had two same size houses on his books for £150k more. Both sold immediately.
I asked a friend to ring and ask if he could see both houses and mine ( he made out he thought it was listed with them). The agent told him not to touch mine with a barge pole. I did complain and he got moved to another office that is not so prominent. Sadly we got caught in the downturn and have sold for a low price. I accepted because we had so little interest after the skulduggery.

I’ve been in a similar position. Under the Estate Agents Act 1979 and the Estate Agents (Undesirable Practices) (No. 2) Order 1991, an agent must promptly tell the seller, in writing, about every offer they receive for the property. This continues right up to exchange of contracts. It only doesn’t apply if the seller has told the EA they don’t want to receive any further offers.

So we made an offer by email - we had viewed the house historically. I included enough information in my offer for someone to be able to identify me and shortly after I received a voicemail at work - it was the seller telling me they didn’t trust their EA and would rather have a direct conversation with me about my offer. And that’s how I bought my house! There are some brilliant EAs…. and some awful ones. I would 100% put a note through the door. Previous posters are correct about EAs looking to sell to friends/families/investors.

As PP said, EA are legally obliged to pass on all offers and are bang out of order to refuse. You can mention this when you get hold of them, and meanwhile put a note through the vendors door. Good luck .