What to do regarding useless estate agents - KFH - bit long!

[Spanglecrab]

Our house has been on the market with KFH for 3 months in South-East London in an area that has seen huge price increases and a very fluid market. It was priced to sell quickly as DW and I are expecting twins in the next few months and we wanted to be out and into our next house quickly.

All was well in the initial period, we had multiple viewings, a few offers and then based on the advice of the agent accepted an offer of £425,000 from a couple who seemed very keen and were in a great position to complete in our time frame.

Up to this point everything was great and all parties were happy. Then on to the survey where apparently the property was down valued by the bank to £410,000. This was based on the age and condition of the roof of which we were aware and were open about to all viewers so as not to face this type of problem at the survey stage.

I knew there was a risk of this happening but what I could never of imagined happening was KFH failing to tell us that the property had been down valued. We then wasted a month in which the buyers had people in to quote for the roof and for a slight damp issue with them assuming they were negotiating from a starting point of £410,000 and us being completely in the dark.

In the end us and the buyers look like being much too far apart to make a deal. We will lose a house that we have had an offer accepted on and the window for us to move may have been lost due to the cooling market. We are limited in time by the fact that our mortagage offer will expire and i'm not hopeful going forward that i'll be in a position to borrow the money with the talked about changes to mortgage lending practice.

I met with the buyers independently and it is clear that they have been lied to as they were under the impression that we decided to put the house back on the market because we wanted more money against the advice of the agent because we were "greedy"

I have spoken to KFH but its clear they don't give a shit. How would any of you with the patience to read on this far proceed from here. I need to complain somewhere!!"

Most big agents like KFH/Haart have a regional manager as well as a branch manager, so if you've already spoken to the branch manager, then it's time to step it up a notch, I'd say.

Have you spoken to your mortgage lender about getting an extension to the MIP? I've heard of a few people having an extra month tacked on without having to go through all the new hoops.

We used KFH a couple of years back in Beckenham and they were amazing but this just sounds dreadful :( Hope you manage to take it higher up the chain and also manage to salvage the situation.

I'd put it back on with another agent at the original price as prices are rising so much it's likely you'll get the same offer even with the roof issue? AFAIK the bank valuation is nothing to do with the purchase/sale price as it's for their mortgage purposes? (Might be completely wrong there.)

Are they sole agents and do you have to give them notice?

We have had very similar with Fucktons (not a typo).
We ended up instructing new agents whilst we waited out our cancelling period so we still had viewings with them, we have ended up selling viaFucktons too, handy as we didn't really want to pay 2sets of fees.
It's been a nightmare but hope to exchange this week.
I feel your pain.

The description of your situation and house makes it sound like a house DP and I viewed a couple of months ago near Blackheath Village.

To be honest, I've found KFH to be mixed. We've used two branches to help with our search and did generally find them to be helpful - some individuals rather more than others, but they never really did ever really chase for feedback on properties.

Personally, I don't know enough about the rules and regulations estate agents need to abide by to know whether anything can be done. My feeling is probably that not too much can be done other than you escalating this to someone more senior and making a formal complaint and changing agents.

Regarding the banks down valuing the house, this is happening frequently from what I hear - house prices rose so massively in a short space of time, but then have cooled down so quickly too. A friend had the flat she was buying down valued by £25k, but the vendor wouldn't budge, so her broker found her another lender who would lend her the right amount. Perhaps the estate agent were just trying in a weird way to just trying to get the best price for you? I don't know? The lack of communication does sound awful though.

It's an awful situation, making something that's pretty stressful even worse. I hope you manage to resolve this.