EA from hell, bullying us into exchange

[ellisss]

Writing this more as therapy to deal with the anger than anything else, as I know we are right, and you guys will sympathise with the situation!!

Situation is: we are FTB in rented accommodation, viewed house for sale with tenants in, negotiated for a month and finally had offer accepted on the basis that we would proceed ASAP, started all proceedings on our part swiftly (survey done within 10 days), contracts from seller's solicitor received after more than a month and following threat of pulling out, our solicitor had multiple queries and it took seller's solicitor more than a month to get back, which is where we are now, with not all queries replied to properly.
Throughout, from first viewing, we asked when current tenants would be leaving. Standard response from EA was "I will check". Second viewing and the tenants had rearranged a lot of furniture, clearly not getting ready to leave but rather settling in even further (been there 3 years I think). Twenty days from second viewing, the EA tells us they have been handed notice, but no indication as to what the notice period is. One-two months you may think. Well, we are now two and a half months on, and we have been told that the tenants have a moving date of a month from now! Shortly followed by urgent emails from EA and seller's solicitor asking for exchange in the next few days. Our solicitor has rightly advised that we should not exchange until we have viewed the property vacant. Have repeatedly told this to the EA. He says that it is the law that the tenants will vacate, which is just a blatant lie (they even have kids so would be even harder to evict!). We haven't even seen the actual notice docs, despite our solicitor asking for them. EA is now making threats saying that the seller will not be happy and will "probably put the house back on the market"... which really sounds ridiculous given the stage we are in. The EA's behaviour is making us think they do not believe the house will be vacated when they said it will be vacated, which further motivates us to wait for exchange! Seriously, how can these people do business in this way? So unprofessional, probably thinking we are FTB and can be fooled. Well, EA from hell, you are very much mistaken!
Is this even ethical? Could we report them to a industry standards board when this is all over? Don't wish anybody else has to deal with this appalling behaviour!
We are not even sure the seller is aware of the very poor advice they are receiving from the EA, is it a big No No to try and reach out to the seller ourselves, saying that we really want to buy but this EA is making it extremely difficult?

We avoided tenanted houses (50% of our search area, unfortunately!) for this very reason. I would also suspect that completing while the house still has tenants wouldn't go down well with your mortgage provider.

I agree that you need to be prepared to walk away. The vendor and estate agent stand to lose more than you do, if you do walk. I would make it clear to the agent, in addition to VR's comments, that they have lost your trust and it's unlikely that you would feel confident in offering on any other properties on their books, given their behaviour.

Ignore the EA.

I wouldn't buy a property with tenants.

We exchanged and completed on the same day for our current house. Gave a month's notice on the flat I was renting that morning. Having that month to decorate and move in, while expensive from rent + mortgage POV, was handy for getting stuff done in the house before we'd fully moved in.

I would not exchange on a property where the vendor could not guarantee vacant possession, especially if the vendor actually had tenants in the property who apparently had no intention of leaving. Can you do as a PP suggested & exchange subject to vacant possession? Alternatively propose simultaneous exchange & completion on X date & require that they have the tenants out X days before this so you can check condition etc.

I agree you are way too emotional about this. You don't even have to deal with the Estate Agent now. Your solicitor can and should be doing more. I think they should write to the vendor's solicitor making your position very clear: although you want to proceed you will only exchange once the property is vacant and not before. When do they expect this to be so you can work towards the provisional date?

Don't waste time asking for copies of paperwork given to the tenants. You don't need to see paperwork because you should not exchange until the property is vacant - concentrate on that. Besides, there will be information about the tenants in that document that should be private and only shared with their consent (like who they are - you don't actually have any right to know their information unless you accidentally become their landlord because you exchange without vacant possession and acquire a tenant).

If I were you, I would focus on getting the sale through with your solicitor's help and advice rather than battling with the estate agent. I would say very firmly that you will not discuss exchange with the estate agent any more because you have explained you cannot exchange until the property has vacant possession (if I was v pissed off I would tell him that getting the property vacant should be his focus, not harassing me) as advised by your solicitor and that you will take the advice of your legally qualifed solicitor over his unqualified opinion. Then I would block his number if he persisted.

Echoing other posters do not let them bully you into exchange.

I've not heard of exchange contingent upon vacant possession but I wouldn't recommend it. At the moment you can walk away and buy a different property having "only" lost out on some survey costs. Your mortgage can all be transferred to another property. If you signed contracts then your deposit could be at risk and you're committed to waiting for this property to be available. Definitely follow your solicitors advice to wait for vacant possession if you want to stick with this property.

I wonder though whether you could get a cheaper and more straight forward property if you withdrew and picked another property?

Thanks all for your very thoughtful and helpful comments. I really think you have to develop a thick skin for going through the house buying process, and it seems like we are just at the beginning of the process! I honestly thought that the fact that the property was tenanted would be an advantage, rather than getting ourselves stuck waiting in chains. Naively, I thought that the seller was selling because the tenants had decided to move out, and she wanted to take the opportunity to sell. Now I see that this was an assumption I had made in my head rather than based on the facts!

As you all suggest, we won't budge with the EA. Luckily all conversations happen via email, so I have evidence of his appalling behaviour and threats. We haven't replied and he hasn't chased us yet. We will sit tight and let our solicitor deal with this nonsense.

We bought a house that was tenanted - first question was 'have the tenants decided to leave or is it just the landlord wanting to sell?'

Interesting that your communication with the agent is by email. Ime it's better to actually speak with them and of course in written communication it can be difficult to convey tone and nuances.

Tell EA to mind own business, I sent a very strongly worded email to my EA as they where pushing for exchange without proper paperwork in place. At the end of the day it's nothing to do with them it is for you, the vendors and solicitors to decide.

Tbh, I can't see the solicitor agreeing to exchange before the property is vacant so it's really not a case of the EA 'bullying' you in to anything. It's not going to happen. Just let the solicitor deal with the EA and repeat the exchange-when-vacant line.

Hope it goes through smoothly for you.

No real advice but just wanted to stop by and say we're in a similar-ish situation. FTBs buying a property which is tenanted. EA has told us the tenant has been served notice and should be out by November and it was strongly implied when we were viewing that the tenant had outgrown the property and was looking to move out anyway. Not too thrilled about the notice date because, if they'd actually served notice when they accepted our offer and started conveyancing, it would be the end of October. Our mortgage offer expires mid-November so we now have less than a fortnight to push through exchange and completion once the property is empty.

In theory, not ideal but it could be done if everything was in order and ready to go by time the tenant packed up and left. But, for some reason, the seller's solicitor seems to be dicking around. Our solicitor has been trying to get paperwork off them for around a month and it keeps getting 'lost in the post'. Personally, I think they've ballsed something up with their workflow and are blaming the postal system as a stalling tactic to get the work done. DH wonders if it's because something's wrong with the title to the property and/or that the landlord hasn't really served notice yet.

We've dropped an email to our broker (who doesn't seem to 'do' phones) to see if we can get the mortgage offer extended by a month or two. We don't know if they'll say yes but, as we're also currently renting, we'd prefer a longer period between exchange and completion as it means it will be less time for us paying rent on a place we no longer need. But that's a (costly but) minor inconvenience compared to 'Can't buy property because couldn't complete by the time mortgage offer expired'. wowfudge also advised on my own thread that we should be speaking to our solicitor and the EA to remind them that the mortgage offer isn't open ended and please can they find out what is actually going on here, so we'll be doing that on Monday (thanks wowfudge).

Oh, and we also thought 'Oh, property's tenanted. That means no chain. This should be easier' so, bar the bullying EA, we're pretty much where you are!

You can get everything lined up, but you can do nothing until the property is actually empty. You could ask for a copy of the section 21 and associated documents to see if it is valid.

The tenant may not go and will do nothing wrong in that. But you certainly don't want to become their landlord - especially as they may stop paying rent ( might as well, doesnt speed up the eviction)

How can you know if the s21 notice is valid without the actual original tenancy agreement though? I don't think a buyer has any right to see these documents. It's for the seller's solicitor to check.

It really doesn't matter what tenancy documents there are. What matters is vacant possession.

If you want to buy a tenanted property to live in, your solicitor will not exchange until he has proof that the tenant has moved out.

He will advise you to visit the property once empty to inspect/check that no major damage has been made by the tenant on the property.

Once you and your solicitor are satisfied, then you can exchange.

Mortgage offers can be extended, your broker should advise.

No amount of "promises/bullying" by the vendor or EA will carry any weight with your solicitor.

He simply will not exchange until vacant possession has occurred.

Just to be clear, in case any of these later comments are aimed at me, our problem isn't so much somebody going 'The tenant's still in the property but you're cool with exchanging now, right?' or even us wanting to exchange before the tenants are out (we don't) and more:

a) The notice being served later than we expected, so having gone from having 5+ weeks from the tenants moving out for double checking the property, exchanging and completing to less than two. (That is, of course, assuming the tenant moves out at the end of the notice period. We've not been given any indication to suggest they won't but who knows?)
b) The seller's solicitor being suspiciously slow to provide our solicitor with paperwork. Obviously aware there are certain things which cannot be done until the tenants have moved out but, because we want to be able to hit the ground running as soon as they do, we want as many ducks in a row as possible before then. But, by the sounds of it, seller's solicitor hasn't even got past square one with providing what our solicitor needs, despite it having been outstanding for around a month now and our solicitor and the EA chasing them.

Your solicitor is lazy and a bit shit. Exchange can have conditions, such as property vacated by certain date , left in reasonable order, viewed by buyer, and if not its revoked or whatever, he or she can even build penalties in.

I'd exchange with conditions, get back on to your solicitor and ask them to get their finger out.

No point in conditions which are unenforceable. If the tenant decides not to leave, only the bailiff can get them out.

A deadbeat solicitor certainly doesn't help!

Is it a complete no-no to contact the tenants themselves to ask them very nicely what they have been told and when (hopefully not if!) they have been asked to vacate the property by and when they are planning on going...

If you ask really politely and nicely and apologise for troubling them but explain that the ea and solicitors aren't doing their job properly which is leaving you in a horrible limbo... If they are nice they won't mind and will provide the info you need (I'm assuming that they know the house is in the process of being sold and they need to leave but they might have been told they can stay which is why the ea is being so unhelpful) but if they are nasty then you know you could bevin for a bumpy ride...

This is theoretically ok as long as the op is not their landlord - if she was it could be harassment.

I had a relatively easy purchase so interested to know how much contact other buyers have with EA? Could OP ask EA to have OPs solicitor as first contact or will that increase OPs costs a lot due to solicitor needing to contact OP? That way OP may feel less direct pressure.
What do more experienced buyers think?

This is getting ridiculous... we haven't heard ANYTHING from the seller's solicitor or the bully EA for the past 10 days! Our solicitor has chased, providing suggested dates for exchange and completion based on the date they've told us the tenants would vacate... So we are showing we are committed to proceeding as soon as the property is vacant... But they have not responded at all! Should we be worried? What else can we do at this point? We have said that our offer will be withdrawn if the property is not vacant by the time they said it would be vacant...

It sounds like the tenants won't be out by when they said. They probably haven't served notice properly. Start looking at other properties.

Honestly? I would pull out. In my experience (and I've bought and sold too many times to ever want to do it again and enough to know what an awful situation it is,) when solicitors and EA's go quiet it's almost always a bad sign. In fact I would hazzard a guess that the vendor is on the verge of pulling out himself.

Start looking for other property now before the market goes quiet in the run up to Christmas, and consider this a lesson learned in how awful the house buying process can be.

It's unfortunate but is all too common sadly, and if you buy and sell in the future you'll come to realise that it's a complete minefield and rarely plain sailing.

There doesn't seem to be any suitable properties in the area we would like to live in at the moment... and we have already spent ££ on surveys on this one...