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Original poster

Unprofessional estate agent or my own mistake?

16 replies

bilbi · 18/05/2018 20:44

Hello,

Wanted to hear your opinion - last week me and my husband went to view a house we were considering to buy, but when the estate agent called for the follow up, we said we are interested but would need to see the floor plans first to understand whether we can make some adjustments to the layout. The guy promised to send me the floor plans once they are done (in a week's time). As I didn't hear anything from the agent since, today I called and inquired about it. The administrator said they are really busy and the plans are not finished yet, but she would give the agent a nudge. Fair enough... but later today I checked Rightmove to find that the property
is now listed as Sold STC!
In my opinion the agent should have contacted and informed us, or am I overreacting and it's my own fault that I decided only to express interest, but not make an offer before seeing the floor plans?
Thank you in advance!

OP posts:
spottydott · 18/05/2018 20:52

I don't see what the agent did wrong?
The floor plans had not yet been completed. They take a while to draw up. You must have known that someone else could make an offer without floor plans and this was the risk that you chose to take...
The only thing the agent could have possibly done is inform you that someone else was seriously interested. But I'm not sure about that...
You have every right to be upset though, it is upsetting when you love a house and don't get it. You will find another that you love.

Notmorewashing · 18/05/2018 20:59

If other people are happy to make an offer without floor plans then it’s your loss. Sorry!

mum2015 · 18/05/2018 23:03

You have viewed the property then you can still offer.

stiffstink · 18/05/2018 23:18

I don’t know why you couldn’t just do a back of a fag packet sketch of what you saw? It’s it vairy complicated?

johnd2 · 18/05/2018 23:26

Not really a mistake or unprofessional, that's just that. If they were telling you someone else was interested and making an offer, we would be suspicious they are trying to talk you up. You can still make an offer up until exchange of contracts, but getting a for plan would still be difficult If you need it.

Thatsalritehun · 18/05/2018 23:26

Somebody else was willing to buy without floor plans and beat you to it with his offer. That’s just the way it is.
Must also add that floor plans didn’t used to be a “thing” before the internet. I looked at a LOT of houses before I I bought this one 20-odd years ago when the internet was in its infancy and I don’t recall a single floor plan.

Original poster
bilbi · 19/05/2018 08:19

Thank you all for replies!

OP posts:
Narya · 19/05/2018 08:38

The estate agent is paid by the vendor, not the buyer, so they will do whatever they can to get the best price/speed of sale for the vendor I'm afraid.

Furano · 19/05/2018 08:59

You can’t ise floor plans to make a decision on if you can move the layout anyway, they aren’t usually that accurate!

hausenberger · 19/05/2018 09:04

I m gonna go against the grain here and say that it's quite unprofessional to launch the sale before floor plans were ready. They are really useful for all sorts of reasons. I guess the market where you are is busy enough they don't have to do much to get a sale!
That said you could have made an offer subject to floorplans and if the other party doesn't need them then they're just as good if not better prospect as a buyer.

Sorry OP this would annoy me too a bit

MismatchedPJs · 19/05/2018 09:47

Normally the estate agent would maximise sale price for the vendor by putting up a floorplan and positively encouraging multiple bids though. The delay for the plan seems strange - a week to do a floorplan, really, after it's already up on Rightmove?

It's probably just them being less than brilliant at doing their best for the vendor. However IF they were doing anything shady like favouring one of their family members who wanted that house, that might look quite similar.

I think you've had some harsh replies here and you just got unlucky with this one. You know that ultimately the agent works for the vendor, but it's unusual to have to chase them hard if you want to make an offer, or to have to construct your own floorplan because they won't do one. Neither are insurmountable problems but it's not the norm for you to have to do them, so there was no way for you to have known you needed to.

QuiteUnfitBit · 19/05/2018 10:04

If I were the vendor, I'd be pretty annoyed that the EA hadn't gone back to a potentially keen buyer to say someone else had put an offer in, and did they want to counter offer before the vendor accepted.

Original poster
bilbi · 19/05/2018 21:06

Thank you! That was my initial idea - we wanted to make an offer, but after seeing the floor plans as it's not a very straightforward planning and we would have needed to extend the bathroom and see how far would it stretch in the room, knock out a part of wall to make access from kitchen to the dining room (as there was some strange lockable door in that part of the wall we asked the EA to find out what's behind it in case it's some old boiler part or smth that would make it more difficult. And again - never heard back from the EA, but hoped to receive that info together with the floor plans).
I guess there is nothing else I can do about it anymore (as I would hate to gazump anyone) unless the chain collapses and the house comes back on the market.
At least I've learned my lesson to be more proactive. Thank you all!

OP posts:
Original poster
bilbi · 21/05/2018 17:09

Guess what - today the house is back on sale again! I think I'm just dealing with really cheeky (to put it mildly) EA - have seen this happening with several other properties of the same agency - list as sold, then remove, probably just to put more pressure on the buyers...

OP posts:
mum2015 · 22/05/2018 08:11

Yey! Go ahead and offer. Good luck!

Original poster
bilbi · 22/05/2018 09:21

Thank you! I will :)

OP posts:
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