Fair enough - an agent's perspective.
Vendors lie to agents all the time, vendors don't want to face the tricky questions or look as if they are hiding something so they let the agent do it
So the agent pretends not to know the answe and/or lies - so whose reputation suffers? That of the estate agent - when agents do this they simply add to the widespread mistrust buyers have for them.
will tell you if your offer is likely to be refused/ accepted
They should do that. But actually, they will dissemble about what offers they have already had. They will pretend they are not 'legally' allowed discuss existing offers - all to elicit a bid from you. Then suddenly, when you have put in a bid - they magically are able to tell you what the other bids are as they try to add fuel to a bidding war.
To try and equate estate agency with law and surveying is ridiculous.
There is no formal training required for estate agency.
There is no compulsory professional register.
Any Tom, Dick or Harry can open up as an estate agent this afternoon and close up next week.
They can employ any sort of person, send them out to do viewings and deal with the largest financial transaction of someone's life - and they could be eighteen without a GCSE to their name.
There is no structured, enforceable, regulation of their behaviour whatsoever.
And because this situation exists and disreputable, unprofessional, often criminal behaviour occurs, people rightly have difficulties trusting estate agents.
You might expect the 'professional' agents would want to do something about this, about the slurs which affect them all.
You might expect to see them lobbying government to bring in compulsory registration, to tighten up the rules governing the behaviour which allows cowboys to flourish.
You might expect that - but you won't get it.
Ask yourself why, even the 'professionals' don't push for greater controls.
Doesn't suit them, does it? Why?