Estate agent mortgage advisor

[Bathmatt]

Hello

We put an offer on a property this week and were told that we had to speak to the estate agent’s mortgage advisor to see if we qualified for the property. I previously told the estate agent that I didn’t want to do this as we had mortgage in place but they said they wouldn’t put our offer without us speaking to their mortgage advisor. Fine. We spoke to them. Lo and behold, our offer was not accepted and we get an email asking if we want to go through our mortgage options for next time a property comes on the market.

Did I have to speak to them for them to put our offer forward?

The reason I ask is because I feel like I’ve been mislead into providing them with personal financial information.

I'm not sure where you are based but certainly here in ROI that is a conflict of interest. They are only taking offers on a house for people they do a mortgage for. Are they two different companies - joe bloggs estate agents and bloggs mortgage advice. That is a breach of DPA to be sharing information if it is.

If they are a member of the property ombudsman scheme put a complaint in.

I hate when agents do this. I have before put a note through the sellers door saying we wanted to offer xyz but the agents were refusing to pass the offer on.

As long as you have an AIP, deposit money, solicitor lined up then the agents need to know no more.

They are supposed to put all offers through to vendors and cannot require that you speak to their mortgage advisor.
Ask why it was rejected, it must be rejected by the vendor not the estate agent - there must be reasoning, it cannot just be that you didn't go with their mortgage.

I would never go through a mortgage advisor tied to an estate agent, too much vested interest, we have got better deals with our independent financial advisor.

Do you think it was rejected by the vendor or that the agent didn't even present it to the vendor and rejected it on their behalf. If you feel it was the latter, I would insist it's sent to the vendor and possibly pop a note through the door so they are aware of what's happening.

yescandomoney.com/do-i-have-to-use-the-estate-agents-mortgage-adviser/

We use an independent broker. I've been in a few situations where this has been a "condition" of moving forward and I've put my foot down and said "we use XYZ, I will happily put you in touch with him but we're happy with his service and I'm not giving my financial information to a third party when we already have our mortgage sorted". The only time this was an issue was when we looked at a new build, so we walked away.

I’m arranging viewings at the moment and it’s so tedious to be given the spiel about speaking to their mortgage adviser by each agent.

If they refused to pass on an offer I’d put a letter through the door to the owner.

Legally they have to submit any offer in writing to the vendor and they are categorically NOT allowed to refuse or make speaking to the mortgage advisor a condition of putting your offer forward. It really fucks me off, such shitty behaviour. Complain to the ombudsman!

Thanks all. It’s allegedly a probate sale and they said that’s why I had to speak to their advisor. I made it clear during the call that the mortgage was already sorted (we are just porting our mortgage over) and in hindsight no other agent has made us do this.

I’ve emailed them asking them to explain themselves and then will escalate the complaint.

Probate situation is irrelevant.

When I saw a dream property coming to the market this March, the guy from the connells won't allow me to book to view the property without meeting their mortgage adviser, even after I emailed him my proof of funds and mortgage in principle, he still told me without applying mortgage through their mortgage adviser, the offer is invalid..

I’m interested to know if it’s happening elsewhere too

Our EA said we couldn’t accept an offer until the buyer had been checked out by their mortgage provider. I got really quite angry with her, as I know they get a kick back from these referrals and I didn’t want to make a keen buyer jump through hoops. The EA’s line was to say that it wasn’t about selling a mortgage (though would be discussed if asked) but to check the buyer had the funds available.

We’ve now offered on a property through a different agent in the same area and our offer was accepted but they are also insisting we do the financial checks through their advisor to check we can afford it.

Like you were also porting our mortgage so i don’t see how the broker can benefit from the chat, but we’ll let him do the relevant checks

Yes I’ve had this it’s so dodgy, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some financial kick back / commission involved. They’re certainly exploiting the competitive market.

Connells did this to us and I can’t help feel it was a factor in our offer not being accepted.

I had this back in the 90s..oldest trick in the book during a property boom.

Put a letter through the door of the property putting your offer in writing and saying that you have been refused but you suspect it was because you didn't accept a mortgage appointment.

Make a call to the compliance officer of the estate agents and draw their attention to this: it isn't in the interests of the vendors and it isn't in yours either

You could also kick up a stink on local facebook page and twitter if you felt like it

Did you have an AIP in place? As it wouldn’t be unreasonable to not consider an offer if you didn’t and they had lots of interest.
If you did and they’ve ignored it that is illegal.

I avoid houses being sold by Connells for this reason. When we were first time buyers we thought it was part of the process and ended up having our bank statements scrutinised and being grilled about a direct debit to charity... (Maybe £12 a month, really no impact on affordability!)

Fortunately haven't come across it this time round, but if we did we'd be much better informed and say no and either walk away (explaining why directly to the seller) or put our offer directly to the seller and explain that the EA is risking their sale.

My seller’s estate agent tried this on too, asking me to talk to their preferred mortgage people about ‘checking affordability’ despite knowing I had an AIP.

FTB and new build so I wasn’t sure if it was normal, but they backed down very quickly when I got my mortgage broker to phone them.

Had this happen just recently with a big EA up here in Sheffield. Wanted to put an offer in but was told I'll have to speak to their mortgage advisor first to 'check affordability' despite telling them we already had an AIP in place, with L&C - who the mortgage advisor basically slagged off and said their AIPs weren't worth the paper they were written on - and that they wouldn't put our offer through until they could see we could afford it. They said they would do me a big favour and 'waive' any fee ("not something we would normally do" - type of thing) but they soon changed their tune when I said we only needed a tiny mortgage and the conversation changed into 'ah in that case I don't think we can waive the fee as it won't be worth all the hours it would take to arrange a mortgage' (uh... who said I would be taking my mortgage up with you anyway!!!). Finally they said that my business wasn't enough so they just said, send through your AIP and we'll submit your offer to the vendor.

We retracted our offer the day after anyway but I was really pissed off with this bullying tactic. Unfortunately property was empty so couldn't go and put a letter under the door to the vendor directly.

WTF!