estate agent got our offer wrong

[abouquetofsharpenedpencils]

Hello,
Please can anyone advise? I am a first-time buyer.
We viewed a house at £240k last Thursday. Owner is desperate to sell as the previous buyer pulled out at the last minute and he wants to have everything completed by the 30 September in order to avoid the stamp duty.
We loved it, put a formal offer forward of £238k on the Saturday.
We emailed this to the estate agent on Saturday very clearly stating £238k and our reasons for being a bit lower (20 year-old boiler).
Received an email from the estate agent 2 days later saying that our offer had been accepted.
Over the moon. Have since started the whole process of instructing solicitors, mortgages etc.
Today the estate agent tells me somewhere along the line there has been a mix-up and the owner never actually received our offer of £238 k and has sold it to us for 240k. He also said the owner will not consider anything under £240k.
He then said that after putting in my offer of £238k, I apparently rang back later and verbally increased it to £240k. I absolutely did not do this. We are borrowing maximum on the mortgage and are using every penny we can scrape together. Why would I do that if my offer had already been accepted??
It just doesn't make sense. I am feeling uncomfortable now and very stressed. If this is just a genuine mistake then ok, everyone makes mistakes, but why didn't the owner get our offer? I thought they were supposed to send our formal offer letter to them.
And the bit about saying I rang back and verbally increased it is just absolute rubbish. They have asked me if I can just pay the £240k but I am feeling really unhappy about the whole thing. It is their mistake after all, I have evidence in the form of emails stating the offer and amount and their email back saying it has been accepted.
I have no experience in this area and confrontation makes me feel physically ill. Can I contact the seller and discuss the matter with him? Or this is a big no-no? I would really like to know what they have said to him.
Apologies this has turned out so long. Thanks for reading to the end

I would be telling them outright that you know they didn’t pass on your offer of 238 to the vendor and they’ve broken the law. Report them to their governing body. Also ask to see phone records to prove you made a call, you want to know what date and time and from what number. This is no longer about your sale - it’s about misconduct.

That's shocking that the EA didn't pass on your offer and was only going off their own bat here.

I'd report this EA to the Trading Standards as they are clearly out for as much of the cut of the sale as they can muster, if the vendor is happy at 238k and you're happy at 238k then it is only the EA who is looking for a bigger piece of the pie in their costs.
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/who-regulates-estate-agents/#:~:text=The%20regulator%20for%20estate%20agency,Act%201979%20(see%20below).

If you are happy to deal with the vendor directly, you could get him to remove his house from sale via the EA, and then do a private sale between both parties and just use the solicitors to make sure everything is above board.
Then the EA gets nothing!

I hope you found out why the lady stopped the sale after paying for the searches.

I think that legally the seller would still be obliged to pay the EA’s fees LookItsMeAgain.

This is not an estate agent beginning with R, named after an ancient civilisation, is it?

It sounds much like a stunt that was pulled on us.

If you are happy to deal with the vendor directly, you could get him to remove his house from sale via the EA, and then do a private sale between both parties and just use the solicitors to make sure everything is above board.
Then the EA gets nothing!

This won’t be possible. There will be a clause in the vendor’s contract with the EA explicitly to prevent it. You might both consider reporting the EA to the ombudsman, however.

@onlyk

Go back and say as per the email the offer is £238k if the seller wishes to pull out then that’s their choice but by the sounds of it the estate agent hasn’t presented your offer to the seller which is something they are legally required to do.

Either someone has f*cked up and they want to avoid an awkward call to the seller at a cost of £2k to you or they are trying to squeeze an extra £2k out of you.

This and put it all in an email

Yet another vote to not budge. The EA are definitely trying to pull a fast one

If you are happy to deal with the vendor directly, you could get him to remove his house from sale via the EA, and then do a private sale between both parties and just use the solicitors to make sure everything is above board.
Then the EA gets nothing!

Sadly that won't work - the introduction was through the EA, so if OP buys within a specified period - usually 6 months - the EA will get paid even if the seller isn't using them anymore.

@abouquetofsharpenedpencils I hope you get this sorted. Just as an aside, if it's vital that this goes through before the end of September, I'd be REALLY clear about that upfront. We thought we had been - everyone knew, it's in the memorandum's of sale, it's in the contracts. We bought the completed searches from past buyers and had our mortgage offer back in 4 days, and we have our survey done, and enquiries sorted... but we've just been in to see our estate agent and they've said the average chain is 19 weeks at the moment and they don't think we'll be done in time.

Please formally complain about the Estate Agency and the company to those who oversee the industry. Please. That is shocking behaviour, and they knew fine well they were lying bastards.

@dannydyerismydad

This is not an estate agent beginning with R, named after an ancient civilisation, is it?

It sounds much like a stunt that was pulled on us.

These guys? www.theguardian.com/money/2019/dec/17/three-berkshire-estate-agents-fined-600000-for-price-fixing

The very same.

They even got away with that by grassing up their rivals. They are truly awful.

@dannydyerismydad

The very same.

They even got away with that by grassing up their rivals. They are truly awful.

😩

Our estate agent did this, we spoke direct to the sellers and when the estate agents were confronted they told her 'we wouldn't have lost you the sale' they're trying it on. They see it as its only 2k to you.. but exactly its also only 2k to the seller. Dont back down.

thank you all
very interesting newspaper article @MilesOfSand!
no not them, a different agency, though I'm beginning to think they are all much of muchness.
it has been so incredibly stressful
struggling to sleep, eat, stomach pain etc
Still ongoing at the moment, will update you as soon as I get news
thanks again for all your support

@LemonSwan

Its the estate agents fuck up. Its their problem.

They can take the 2k out of their sales fees.

Say no its 238k as originally stated. Please confirm or not.

This. Stick to your guns!

@LookItsMeAgain

That's shocking that the EA didn't pass on your offer and was only going off their own bat here.

I'd report this EA to the Trading Standards as they are clearly out for as much of the cut of the sale as they can muster, if the vendor is happy at 238k and you're happy at 238k then it is only the EA who is looking for a bigger piece of the pie in their costs.
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/who-regulates-estate-agents/#:~:text=The%20regulator%20for%20estate%20agency,Act%201979%20(see%20below).

If you are happy to deal with the vendor directly, you could get him to remove his house from sale via the EA, and then do a private sale between both parties and just use the solicitors to make sure everything is above board.
Then the EA gets nothing!

Vendor will be in contract with the EA to pay fees for a buyer introduced by their agency. T&C’s will cover this eventuality.

Sorry the stress is making you feel poorly OP. Moving is such a stressful experience, at every stage, but honestly you would think an EA should be able to communicate an offer correctly.

We moved recently, right up to exchange our nerves were in tatters. The day we exchanged, I said to DH in the morning I can’t stand anymore of this, I think we should pull out. He said no, I think we are nearly there, and we were solicitor called in the afternoon asking our permission to exchange.

You will get there OP, whether it’s this house or another.

Wishing you all the best for the future

I'd stick to my original offer too. There is no deal to be had with the EA. I'd tell them I'd be reporting them and let their regulator investigate them
Focus your mind on the sale and on your new home, fingers crossed

Well, it has been a long, hard battle.

I had a call from the EA on Tuesday saying the vendor was happy to take 239 as I think I mentioned previously. I said I would think about it. I was very, very close to giving in. I tried to call the vendor again a few times but he didn't pick up or return my calls. If I had been able to speak with the vendor directly again perhaps we could have sorted something out as I wanted to hear the numbers from his mouth not the EA.

Last time I spoke the vendor was unhappy they were trying to get me to up my offer to 239. So, I asked the EA had he told the vendor 238. He said yes, but the vendor would not be able to accept 238. (Yeah, right)

The EA meanwhile was pressurising me into offering 239.

After mulling it over, in the small hours of the morning, I realised the stress is just unbearable and started to wonder if all of this was really worth it.

I think a combination of not hearing from the vendor, lack of sleep, stress, perhaps just compounded things. The more I thought about it, the more unfair it all seemed and the more I just wanted to pack it all in and be done with the whole thing.

Last night, in the early hours, DH and I wrote a letter to the director simply stating:

• it has all been incredibly stressful
• final offer is 238 as I originally stated and was accepted by yourselves in writing on suchasuch s day
• please let me know by the end of today yes or no in writing

I sent that off this morning.
Then immediately began to regret it!

An hour later, the Director called and again apologised etc but insisted on the "misunderstanding".

I simply said I had been lied to, misled and gaslighted and that my trust had been broken. I said I was ready to walk away and the solicitor was on standby to stop all proceedings by the end of the day.

He then said that they had already come to an arrangement with the vendor whereby they would absorb some of the fees, so they were already sacrificing a great deal! ie. the vendor doesn't get to lose, but I still have to pay 1000 for their mistake...

I remained firm and just said let me know by the end of the day in writing.

DH and I were planning on going to see the vendor at 4pm today in a last attempt to communicate .....but at 3:30pm I received a call from the director saying my offer of 238 had been accepted!

I should be happy and relieved now but just feeling utterly exhausted and am left with a bitter taste in my mouth.

It really is shark-infested waters and must be challenging for everyone but even more so if you are not naturally an assertive person like myself.

I want to thank each and every one of you Your messages have really helped keep me going and not waver.

I think I might take a nap now!

Bloody hell, well done OP and I totally get how horrible it all is.
Did you actually get the acceptance in writing like you asked?

Fantastic outcome! Well done for sticking to your guns

Excellent outcome. I do hope the vendor throws the EA to the wolves!

Brilliant! So glad you didn’t give in. Well done.
Our vendors EA lied to us too.
There were only 3 of us in the chain and he tried playing us all off against each other.

Little did he know, we were friends with our buyers and had contacted our vendors. So we were all in contact and outmanoeuvred him!

He was not happy and still can’t look me in the eye 10yrs later!

The right & correct outcome in the circumstances, you never should have been put through such stress, it was the EA error. Good luck with your move.

Well done OP! You've done amazingly well, what an utter nightmare, and I'm still incredulous at the EA behaviour.

Understandably you're exhausted. Hopefully the bitter taste will wear off & you can feel excited avoid the house again.

Are you planning on taking any further action against the EA? Reporting them? I don't know what's possible & I'm not in the UK but it doesn't feel like something they should be able to get away with?