AIBU to expect estate agents to know what they're selling??

[purplepencilcase]

Argh so frustrated!! Offer made on property, mortgage applied for and solicitor instructed.
The agents were not 100% sure if the curtilage of the property but absolutely gave the impression we would own the drive to the road.
My own research indicates we only gave right of passage over it, but highways a town it.

We looked found 3 times with different viewers, none of them actually knew anything about the property they were showing us.

Is this normal? I think I'm being naïve in thinking I can believe what the agents tell me 😞

You’d think so but often not the case. Ours told us the lease was 20 years longer than it actually was… and the actual length was getting into a concerning short length of lease!

YANBU

The estate agents that we are currently buying through had no idea that the property they were selling is Grade II listed. Came as quite a surprise to them when I told them!

The ad for our current house said it was 19th century and Edwardian 🙄 .

I assumed it was one or the other, but nope… neither.

In my personal experience, agents lie. One lot advertised a property as having parking along a private road and continued to do so even when the owner of said road emailed them to ask for incorrect info to be removed. They actually took down a footpath sign that went across the same property and acted dumb when asked directly if there were any footpaths across the property.

A couple of sales fell through and eventually property was sold by auction, well below the original asking price, by another agent.

I suspect it's incompetence and placing too much trust in what the vendor tells them. I can't see why they'd lie as searches and legal stuff would reveal the lie - wasting everyone's time, including theirs, as buyers pull out and chains collapse.

Estate agents only know what vendors tell them, they don’t do any legal checks and aren’t obliged to, they just want to sell the house so take everything with a pinch of salt.

It’s absolutely normal for estate agents to have very limited knowledge about individual properties they are selling

What @Changingplace and @Twiglets1 said.

Agents often don’t have any knowledge of the property.

They have no clue. I work in a retirement development and the amount of stuff they missell is crazy. Also once they are trying to close the sale they expect me in the office to do a lot of their or the solicitor a work. I keep telling them this is the solicitors job. They go well they are having problems. Half the time I know they haven't looked.last time they were after insurance documents they are on display in our hallway the estate agent claimed to have no idea .

This is why I always want the Vendor to do the viewings.

My heart sinks when the EA says they are doing the viewings, I know it will be a waste of time and they won’t even get back to me with answers to any questions I ask.

I honestly don’t understand these days what they do for their fee. I guess it has gone from advertising and finding a buyer, Rightmove pretty much does that for them,, to trying to liaise with Solicitors / Mortgage Brokers to hold a chain together.

On one viewing we asked when the house was built and she said 'Nineteen... um... nineteen something!'

She also told us it was a South facing garden when it was North facing. Now I don't expect EAs to have a compass in their heads, but it would have been extremely easy to work out in this case because the house was right on the Northern outskirts of the city, facing inwards.

I mean this politely but if it was so easy why did you need to ask?why could you Not work it out yourself?

They do lie. We pulled out of a purchase when the estate agent neglected to tell us about the 200 new houses set to be built in the beautiful rolling fields opposite, with access road exactly opposite the drive if the house we were offering on.

Ime Estate agents fall into two main groups

1. inexperienced youngsters trying it as a job, with understandably a lot to learn, and fairly clueless. (Like we all are at the start of a career)

1. Veteran, own their own business, 'know everything instantly' people.

I don't know where the mid career reasonably competent ones go! Its not a very family friendly job so I suppose doesn't fit well with parenting.

You pay a solicitor to do the legal searches for a reason. Have you ever read all the disclaimers in an EA's Ts & Cs?

@Thefriendlyone we didn't ask! She raised it herself as one of the big 'selling points' of the house 😬

No idea why that comment was directed at me? I’m agreeing that you shouldn’t rely on what estate agents say and that they often don’t know much.

Also forgot to mention that she told us this when we were standing in the garden, which was fully in the shade at midday

I’ve always thought that most estate agents seem to be 70% confidence/arrogance and 30% useful information. You really need to do your own research or get a good survey to find out the truth.

Estate Agents don't even have to check that the seller owns the property they are trying to sell.
Miss Green asked Estate Agent to sell a house. Land Registry says house is owned by Mr Edwards. Miss Green tells Estate Agent that Mr Edwards is her father.
Estate agent does the legally required ID checks on Miss Green. But he doesn't seek any evidence that Mr Edwards consents to the sale, knows about it, has given power of attorney etc etc.

Yes, I withdrew my offer.

I would never rely on anything the estate agent says about legal related stuff. But I find it dreadful how often they know nothing about the houses they are viewing, such as where things are in the house, whether the loft is boarded, if there is electricity in the garage. It's quite common for them to not have even been to the house before and not know what is behind each door! It's very 'Stath Lets Flats'.

I feel sorry for the vendors having such inept agents working for them. I used a 2 person firm for my recent sale and both had visited the house, asked lots of questions and took lots of notes. And they were cheaper than all the larger firms.

Doesn’t surprise me. On all of our viewings during our recent purchase, they were all open houses hosted by inexperienced 21 year olds who knew barely anything about the house.

We actually ended up almost pulling out of the house we eventually bought as we were told the owners were selling and moving out to live with family when actually the people living in the house were tenants!

Of course they didn’t! Surely you didn’t seriously expect that they would?!