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Original poster

Charging for house viewings

24 replies

SquashMinusIsShit · 28/07/2021 12:26

This question popped up on the you gov app today, I was surprised take the majority of people were against the charges.

It's been a few years since we moved but I remember roping in the ILs to do a viewing as we were at a wedding & the person just didn't turn up. If that happens a lot it must be very annoying!

OP posts:

Themostwonderfultimeoftheyear · 28/07/2021 12:32

House moving is already really expensive! We viewed 6 houses in one weekend and had to pay for a hotel for the night. £180 would have been a lot to add on.

LittleLottieChaos · 28/07/2021 12:35

Some houses are grossly misrepresented in their listings... This would be very unfair on buyers who do turn up to their appointments and aren’t time wasters. It’s a bit like punishing the whole class because one kid acts like a nob. No one likes that kid but we have to accept their existence.

I also really don’t think the housing market needs any more money grabbing angles.

SollaSollew · 28/07/2021 12:50

I'd be most interested to know who gets the £30? I do think it's annoying when people don't turn up but it's up to estate agents to be doing their vetting properly and to make sure someone is proceedable in the first place!

AfternoonToffee · 28/07/2021 13:00

It could work if it was only taken if you didn't show up, so if you turned up then you wouldn't have to pay.

SisyphusDad · 28/07/2021 13:01

it would be fair enough if Estate Agents had to cough up £30 every time they took someone to see an unsuitable or misrepresented property.

IcedSpice · 28/07/2021 13:02

Not a chance in hell!

readytosell · 28/07/2021 13:05

I was just coming here to see if anyone had posted about it

And fwiw I would also be against the charges. The process can be pretty shit , and yeah it can be frustrating to get a no show, but this is not a solution.

InpatientGardener · 28/07/2021 13:10

No way after having viewed a house last week for the agent to announce midway round that a sale had just fallen through due to damp and Japanese knotweed. If they had been upfront about that in the advert or when I booked the viewing then I wouldn't have wasted my time.

LtDansleg · 28/07/2021 13:13

Of course you shouldn’t have to pay to view a house! People not turning up is just something you need to deal with. At a push maybe a deposit should be held and then returned when people turn up.

ATrifleofFun · 28/07/2021 13:14

It would be fine if they took a deposit and gave it back when you showed up. It could add up to a lot quickly if you needed to look at a few houses before you found the right one

Teenyton · 28/07/2021 13:17

Penalty charge of £5 for not turning up seems more sensible. Viewing charge just sounds an attempt to earn estate agents money. It'd also slow down house sales.

Teenyton · 28/07/2021 13:20

@SisyphusDad

"it would be fair enough if Estate Agents had to cough up £30 every time they took someone to see an unsuitable or misrepresented property."

Yep. And also some penalties for grossly exaggerating and misleading people on sales price to get the house and then asking you to reduce after it doesn't sell.

PattyPan · 28/07/2021 13:20

It would lead to actual buyers being put off too, I viewed at least 10 houses when we bought ours (and put offers on two others), no way would I have coughed up £300 for that. Maybe as a refundable deposit with the estate agent that you put down when you register with them but even then if you have a lot of agents in town it would mount up.

gogohm · 28/07/2021 13:23

Charging for no shows is fair enough, fed up with them - 4 viewings booked Saturday only one showed!

Ozanj · 28/07/2021 13:25

It would probably encourage people to put offers on properties without viewing them and then pulling out later.

ComtesseDeSpair · 28/07/2021 13:26

Isn’t this why most people use an estate agent to carry out viewings, so they aren’t inconvenienced themselves by no-shows or time wasters? I’d imagine if there was any mileage in this kind of idea, agents would have implemented their own version of it years ago.

Lockdowndramaqueen · 28/07/2021 13:54

Rather than a fee - it could be a refundable deposit so if you don’t show you loose it.

Lelliebellieboo · 28/07/2021 14:23

surely the solution is to implement video tours on the listings? I've noticed that these have started to come on for some properties over the past year and I think it makes sense.

If you can physically watch someone walk through the house and offer a 360 degree view of each room, you can then decide whether you want to physically view it or not.

I mentioned on another thread, we had an issue with our listing that people didn't realise how small our two bedrooms are (both box room size). It wound me up hugely when every single feedback was "too small" because it felt like it was wasting everyone's time. Instead, a video could have let people see that instantly.

halcyondays · 28/07/2021 14:24

I’m not surprised at all. Who wants to pay £30 per house viewing?

giletrouge · 28/07/2021 14:24

You can't charge for house viewings any more than you can charge people to just go into a shop and look at the goods! Ridiculous idea.

TakeYourFinalPosition · 28/07/2021 14:43

Nah, this is silly.

Although we’ve just sold a flat - slowly because of Covid! - and never had a viewer not turn up. I wonder if we were really lucky, or if that’s not a major problem everywhere.

We didn’t even have any cancelled viewings.

We did have a video tour of the property and a lot of honest, unedited photos, so maybe that helped. The “clever” photography tricks surely only get the wrong people in the door…

StarlingsDarlings · 28/07/2021 14:47

We filtered most timewasters out by only allowing viewings from those who were chain free or already SSTC. Wouldn’t have accepted an offer from anyone not in that position anyway.

TwoLeftSocksWithHoles · 28/07/2021 15:17

I remember hanging about outside a house waiting for the estate agent to turn up and after about 15 minutes we phoned and he said, "well they've accepted an offer so there's no point in coming out to meet you."
So some of the EA's can be just as bad.

surreygirl1987 · 28/07/2021 20:38

No way!! Who would get the money? The EA?! Surely that would just make more of an incentive to get liyrtslly ANYONE through the door? No thank you - if I'm going to declutter my home from top to bottom and hide all the toddler junk in the car, I don't want them to have been tricked into being there by EA tactics! We've never had a no show mind you, though did have a couple of cancellations in advance.

Secondly, with all the 'clever' photo tricks, I'd be pretty annoyed if I paid £30 to see a house with a good sized garden, only to find that the garden was the size of a postage stamp! The garden pictures are the worst - how do they get tiny ones looking so massive?! I wouldn't mind paying a deposit that you get back once having attended a viewing, if noshows are actually the motivation for this (rather than greed!) ... although it sounds like a faff.

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