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Original poster

What's your verdict ? Are we being 'had' by our Estate Agent ? ......(long)

98 replies

NomDePlume · 10/01/2006 11:34

.... I'm beginning to wonder.

As some of you know, DH and I are selling our house to move further up the ladder. Our house was put on the market at the very end of the house-selling 'season', at the end of September '05. The market was dead in our area so we knew it might take a while to sell. We had a number of viewers who all came back with various reasons it wasn't for them. Fair enough.

We had a viewing in early November, the couple (I'll call them X) came back for 2 further viewings which resulted in a low offer. X are currently living in rented, as they sold their property months ago. We rejected the offer outright and they came back later that day upping it a little (but not enough), we rejected that too. All went quiet.

We heard nothing from our Agent, they appeared to be doing jack-all about finding us a buyer. In a quiet market I would expect the agent to be coming to me with suggestions of incentives to get people through the door - Open Days, Lower asking price, Stamp Duty paid etc etc. Nothing of that nature was forthcoming.

As soon as our 12 week contract ended we issued 28 days written notice of termination of contract, as we were deeply unhappy with the agent and had decided to re-market the house in the spring. The agent acknowldged the notice letter and all went quiet again...

Fast forward to last Thursday (2 working days before expiration of contract) and we get a call out of the blue, saying that X have upped their offer again but are away on holiday. We told the agent that the offer was good but we couldn't accept until we were happy that we could find something appropriate for us to buy. Cue mental searches for property and last minute viewings a-go-go. We found 2 houses we would like to buy and negotiated a price. So called our agent to accept the offer, this morning. The agent seems to now be back pedalling a little and saying don't hold your breath for them still be prepared to buy, despite the fact that we told them we needed a few days to find somewhere.

DH thinks that the agent has made an 11th hour attempt to save his ass (and to recoup his 16+ weeks of costs) and has fabricated this offer from X, with a view to it being accepted and then calling the X's and telling them we'll go to £BLAHk in the hope that they'll say yes. I'm not sure, it strikes me as a very unprofessional and risky strategy, if they have... But things do sound suspicious to me.

If you're still awake (well done), what do you think ?

OP posts:
carly82 · 10/01/2006 12:05

Also the house was valued at 120,000 i was at first advised to have an asking price of around 130,000! I said no as we basically wanted a quick sale, but now i see why because if someone had come straight in with that asking price agents would ahve been laughing.

littlemissbossy · 10/01/2006 12:08

carly82, the agreed percentage fee is based on the price that the property sells for NOT what the property is valued at.

Twiglett · 10/01/2006 12:08

I would be more worried that he is so very bad at doing it

of course it was a ploy .. but demonstrates that he's a crap negotiator so I would pull out of contract immediately

Original poster
NomDePlume · 10/01/2006 12:09

Just alled EA, she said that she has no record of offer letters being sent out to us on previous offers, but it was/is company policy to confirm offers in writing. I've asked her to put this most recent offer in writing and get it in the post today, that should at least provide something to calm my racing mind (and blood pressure)

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Original poster
NomDePlume · 10/01/2006 12:10

CARLY - ALWAYS, ALWAYS USE AN INDEPENDENT CONVEYANCING SOLICITOR !!!

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Original poster
NomDePlume · 10/01/2006 12:11

DH and I have bought and sold over 10 houses between us, you'd think we'd be able to smell a rat by now [eye roll]

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carly82 · 10/01/2006 12:11

looks like i could have signed to pay fees of original selling price not what it finally went for. When i lowered the house price as i said before all idone was made a call i didn't sign a second contract neither was my xp informed by the agency (although it was only because of him i done it)i never thought that strange before but now i think they must have seen me coming should i have asked for a second contract when i changed the asking price?

Original poster
NomDePlume · 10/01/2006 12:12

I would have done, carly.

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littlemissbossy · 10/01/2006 12:17

Normal circumstances are that you DO NOT need to sign a second agreement. However, please re-read your agreement.... it sounds very fishy to me. With this sort of fee practice, they could overvalue all of their properties for sale in order to get more fees IYSWIM. This is most certainly not normal practice and if you get nowhere with the solicitor, tell them you'll report them to the NAEA which I presume they are a member of.

carly82 · 10/01/2006 12:21

oops i have just re read a few posts and realised i might have confused a little let me start again.............
when selling, houses come in different price brackets for example (don't quote me as im not 100% sure of exact figures)
Between 110,001-130,000 bracket two
110,000 and under bracket one
so on so forth......
the fees for these are split into brackets so agent fees for bracket one are 1% and for bracket two are 1.75%
which means i won't pay the fees for selling the house for 120,000 but i will pay the fees as if i was selling a house for that price IYSWIM so instead of paying only 1% fees of 110,000 i have to pay 1.75% of 110,000.
I hope that says it better or have i well and truly confused everyone now

Original poster
NomDePlume · 10/01/2006 12:25

carly that's what I understood your original post to mean

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carly82 · 10/01/2006 12:26

NDP just confusing myself then

Original poster
NomDePlume · 10/01/2006 12:29

lol

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crunchie · 10/01/2006 12:45

Carly I understand what you mean, I would check v v carefully the original agreement which says 1.75% if the property sells at £120,000. If you have been informed that the fees were 1% for properties valued at £110,000 or less they should stick to that. Their practices certainly sound a bit odd to me.

The other question for everyone who is buying/sellling a house, do you HAVE to sign a contract with an EA for a certian amount of time? The reason I ask is that I refused when I sold my flat and I got a 48Hr clause. Personally I tyhink a 12 week contract is a way for an EA to be a lazy as for months.

Original poster
NomDePlume · 10/01/2006 12:46

In my area 12 weeks (+28days notice) is the minimum contract.

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Original poster
NomDePlume · 10/01/2006 12:47

In fact, it's 14 weeks with the agent we went with but we negiotiated it down.

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LIZS · 10/01/2006 12:47

ndp ours is the same - 16 week lock in.

Original poster
NomDePlume · 10/01/2006 12:47

negotiated

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crunchie · 10/01/2006 14:10

Blimey that's outrageous. I asked around here and 6 weeks (no additional lock in) is normal

Original poster
NomDePlume · 10/01/2006 14:48

Well I must've made my/our suspicions absolutely crystal clear to the EA when I called earlier, as they've just sent a junior round to hand deliver the offer letter which details the offer price, the date it was made, the purchaser name and their buying positon.

It makes me feel a lot more confident of being an actual offer, if it wasn't then surely they've just dug their own grave in giving me this signed dated declaration ?

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earthtomummy · 10/01/2006 15:07

Nomdeplume, I sympathise. I smelt a rat when I rang our EA re. a general lack of viewings in a fairly bouyant market. I also happened (with the EA's knowledge) to be simultaneously advertising our house on a website and had had some viewings and some call sfrom people who had registered with our EA but not heard re. our property. Anyway, as I was raising this with our EA, he magically had to chip in in v. melodramatic style, saying .." wait, oh I don't believe...oh yes, an offer is just coming through." Anyway, I didn't believe a word of it, it wasn't confirmed in writing and after several more things we had a huge row with EA who suggested that I had called him a liar and got REALLY angry and abusive! He asked us to remove myself from his books, which was really convenient because we had wanted to extricate ourselves from our contract. We sold independent of an EA but (believe it or not) still get letters from the EA telling us if we sell and the buyer is registered with them, then they'd like their percentage...!! I will never use an EA again.

Original poster
NomDePlume · 10/01/2006 18:13

oh god, that post scares me !!!!

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PrincessPeaHead · 10/01/2006 18:18

ndp I actually think that them being on holiday makes it sound MORE likely that the offer has been made. He has been ill, they go on holiday - what do you talk about when there? Well you have hours and hours to discuss how much you want to move house in 2006, how much she liked your house, do you think it is going back and making a final offer - if you have those sorts of conversations you would phone the EA and make the offer from holiday. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me!

I know, I've done it!

Original poster
NomDePlume · 10/01/2006 18:19

I thought it was ok, but DH (being naturally suspicious ) has his paranoid head on...

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Original poster
NomDePlume · 10/01/2006 18:21

I'd be gutted if this goes tits up, we'd be moving to our dream house if it comes off.

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