Is anyone else struggling with stereotypes when buying????

[BarchesterFlowers]

Estate Agent - fairly posh one - Memorandum of sale addressed to Mr & Mrs DH's first name Flowers - put that right.

Survey - completely separate to anything else, random firm commissioned by me, DH's name nowhere near it, paid for by me, emails all from me - addressed to Mr DH's first name Flowers.

What are these people on, it is 2017. Never encountered this before in my five previous purchases. DH is as as I am.

When I say fairly posh EA, I mean the one that sells all the big houses locally with surveyors in the office, we are probably buying the cheapest house on the books.

Is it part of the RICS training or something??

It's just convention. There are plenty of people who do it who would think those who didn't were, well, wrong. I find it hard to get wound up by that kind of thing. If you don't have your husband's surname then tell them. If you do then I'm afraid it's to be expected.

That would annoy me too, and I correct it every time.

Convention from when exactly?

What on earth would make someone address a report to a man when it was commissioned and paid for by a woman.

It wouldn't bother me
I can't get upset about this sort of thing

I've bought recently and all our correspondence was address Mrs B Ocumbungles and Mr R Ocumbungles.

I think your EA must come from 1955.

It's old fashioned and you'd hope we'd moved on but not everybody has. I often get work correspondence addressed to Mr 'clearlywomansname' Wonkylegs because I work in a traditionally male profession and people assume or just out of habit think I must be a man. I even get it after people have spoken to and met me (i have long blond hair & big boobs and am obviously female)
I just correct it every time and roll my eyes but honestly can't get that het up about it.
The lack of female ambition at my kids school and the inability of the school to address it or even look at opportunities to address it - that I can get my knickers in a twist about.

It's fucking rude mozzchops and should be called out. Doesn't matter what it said, you address the letter to the person you are corresponding with not someone you think it should be addressed to.

I had to pull our solicitor up because despite the fact that they hadn't once spoken to DH and he was leaving all the sorting out bar actually signing the documents to me (we are buying together but frankly if I left it to him it would never get done) they invariably addressed all the emails to him (ie all addressed to 'Dear Mr Uberfluffs' when emailing both of us)

They also gave me that codswallop about how it had always been done that way, and the man's name always came first etc etc. Frankly, it's crap, women have their own money now and shouldn't be treated like some afterthought. They should at least be civil enough to ask us which format we'd be happy with, after all hundreds of pounds of my earnings have paid their wages!

Women just accept it though, probably because they don't feel confident enough to stand up to it, so it will carry on happening until women start making a positive choice to hit them in the pocket by going with the companies that treat them with respect. Next time we move I'll be looking for one of those!

I have also only had that in the context of house-buying! My solicitor did it, my estate agent did it last time, my ace estate agent this time didn't and I love her for it.

I don't care if it (was) convention. If all these professionals can get their head round new fangled emails and online banking they can get their head round addressing the person they are in touch with, not some other person connected to them!

We get stuff at work addressed to 'Dear Sirs'
There are no sirs in my team, sometimes I wonder if we should just not bother answering!
Very annoying and unnecessary.

Yep i had a whole rant on here about it. Especially when they initialled where we were to sign and put his name first despite never having spoken to him. Our surveyor didn't as was only under my name.

I've had something similar too- I submitted an official form to our council. It was about my project, filled in by me and signed by me. My husband's name was nowhere on it. But the supporting documents were still returned to my husband.
Perhaps my delicate lady-brain can't be expected to cope with the opening of envelopes. Too distressing, perhaps.

Once done I will be asking who they would put first if we were a same sex couple

Our situation is a bit like Uber. I am making this happen, DH is a happy passenger. I wanted to downsize and the perfect house came up do we are buying without selling.

I am the driver here and the very substantial deposit is mine, not his, sadly recently inherited. We will pay off the mortgage once our other house sells.

DH is just as miffed as I am.

I had the same. I drove the entire purchase and was the only person in contact but all of the paperwork kept being sent to my DH who just gave it to me

At the end, I had a refund on some fees which I had personally paid and they sent the cheque to my DH too! At least the builders were sensible and knew to bypass my DH if they wanted decisions without going through all of the silliness...

I have been working with students placed in offices lately and they are still told to address letters to Dear Sirs regardless of whether the directors might be women. Quite strange really. My Mum had a cold call from a woman trying to sell cladding or something for the house and when Mum wouldn't play ball, she asked several times to speak to the man of the house!!

I get mail addressed to Mr. AlphaStation. Annoying but one does get used to it. What is more annoying is when you read stories about a bank director who could not wear a cardigan at work, since she then invariably was taken to be the bank director's secretary.

What about taking out a joint endowment policy, making every payment myself and then the building society demutualises and DH receives the windfall bonus.

Estate agents are amazing for this. I was buying on my own, as a single woman, and they didn't even want to show me around some places (because they were so convinced that clearly someone else would be making the decision.) Took really quite a long time for the EA to believe that the girl in jeans was earning considerably more than him

Just had this this morning! Trying to make an appointment for a quote to install new patio doors, was asked about whether there was a Mr and then they refused to visit unless he would also be present at the time!

My mother still address my cards, letters, etc, to me as Mrs husband's name Flying. If you have Thomas Sanderson blinds round they get very upset that the husband isn't present. It was like dealing with something from 1955. Anglia windows were the same. The bloke was very rude to me when he was supposed to be coming because husband was away on business. Btw, don't get Thomas S in as that is two hours of my time I won't get back.

Estate agents are nearly as bad as car dealerships. I have never experienced as much sexism as I did when I was buying a car.

My neighbours think I'm divorced because they can't conceive that a woman can buy a house on her own with her own money that she's earned

I had this and i'm divorced but with the same surname as ex H. I am selling MY house that only I pay for to get him taken off of the mortgage and all correspondence has been to Mr and Mrs ExHinitials Wool.

So mad.

I have never experienced this when buying a car! Or anything else to this degree.

I am nearly 50 and shocked at it tbh. I could afford to buy this house alone but am married to DH and so the purchase is in joint names.

I suppose it is only almost 100 years since we got the vote and all that - pathetic!