I've NC for this as potentially outing.
So this week we had an offer accepted on a house. The house was up for sale with a new, very small estate agent who doesn't have an office but works remotely.
Initially when we offered, the estate agent said 'the vendor did not give a particularly warm welcome to your offer as they were hoping for it sooner after your second viewing'. Some of the things he said were a bit weird - the estate agent more or less said that the vendor resented us as they lost the house they wanted because we didn't offer sooner. I was a bit like WTF (we weren't in a position to offer until this week!) but the estate agent went back and forth to the vendor and we negotiated a price.
Anyway, today the sales memorandum came through. And the vendor has got the same (unusual) name as the estate agent!!!!! So I did a quick Google and found out that the estate agent business that we have been going through, is registered at the address of the house we are buying.
To cut a long story short, the estate agent is the same man as the vendor!!!! Not once has he let on. He showed us round the bloody house as an estate agent, not once letting on that it was his house!!
He even lied to the point of pretending to go back and forth calling the vendor about our offer etc etc. When we made our offer, he was so so picky about checking that we could afford it and pretty much wanting it signed in blood. It's obvious why now!!
What would you do? Is that even legal?
To be honest, it's an old house (about 150 years old) that needs work and we are about to invest in a full structural survey and now we feel anxious. What else has this man lied about? And how could he lie to our face so many times? Would this make you uneasy? It's making us wonder what else he is lying about . I guess we should let our solicitor know so that she can ask outright?
I've hardly slept all night chewing this over.