how much do you believe an estate agents opinion?

[esgee]

I am thinking of downsizing. At the moment I live in a little cottage by myself (67 years old) I don't have any neighbours, as its quite remote. No issues at all with noisy children, car parking issues, etc etc. In a few years time it will need some works doing to it and I won't have the money.

So I'm thinking of selling before it gets to that stage.

I went to view a property on a barn conversion site. All the house are attached to each other in some shape or form, but charming. Lots of pathways.

The house I looked at has not much view or garden apart from looking over the row of garages which leads to the agent saying,

'oh no one parks there, everyone uses the visitors one'
and 2, everyone has a right of way to walk through everyones garden, again the agent says that 'no-one does that'

I don't know wether to take their word or not. WWYD?

The actual house would suit me to a T. But going from nothing to neighbours is a bit scary.

Hahaha no never listen to an estate agent telling you stuff like that, they likely don’t know and are just making stuff up, and even if they do know they are more than happy to lie to get you to put an offer in.

I’d not believe a word of that, and quite frankly they wouldn’t know. And even if no one did either, doesn’t mean they won’t start.

id doubt folks will walk through your garden for fun, maybe for access, but am sure folks will park at rhe garages.

assume worst case and decide if you can live with it.

Even if you talked to the neighbours about it right now and they confirmed what the agent said, that doesn’t guarantee that it won’t change in the future if there’s right of way for others.

Don't believe anything they say. Go round at the weekend to see the worse case parking scenarios and maybe knock on someones door and ask about whether access rights are used.

Bottom line is, as someone above said, just because no one is using them now by "gentlemans agreement" doesn't mean that someone won't in the future.

assume worst case and decide if you can live with it.

I second this, if the worst case scares you, that's your answer

I would never believe an estate agent when viewing a house. They just seem to say whatever.

But once I'd made an offer (first time buyer), the sales team were extremely helpful and knowledgeble about how the process worked.

Not a single word. Assume the worst case scenario, OP, and ask if you would still want the house.

I would be inclined to believe the opposite. We once had an estate agent tell the person buying our flat that we would be quite happy for her decorators to come in and re decorate the house while we were still living there. Yeah right.

the agent has just called to say that there is a covenant on the garages to say that cars cannot be parked outside the actual garages.

They have to be parked inside when in use.

I am going to steal something from another thread to do some research from the land registry. Apparently I can read the original deeds or something?

Good luck with trying to enforce a covenant, especially one to do with parking.

OP, you have bad vibes about this, and you should listen to them. Keep looking, you will find something which will suit you.

Don't buy it.

If you really like it these don’t sound like massive issues, but if they’re massive issues to you don’t buy it!

I would trust an estate agent as far as I could throw an elephant 😂

Have a look on Google earth at the property. And go visit at different times over the weekend

I wouldn't trust the agent but parking is a chronic problem in many areas because flats and houses were built with no or one parking spaces whereas most couples have two cars. It may be something you have to make peace with at a given budget. That said, it may be enforced- my MIL lives in flats with similar rules and the management company clamps cars parked outside garages. However, people do park permanently in then visitor carpark and use their garages for storage, which then gets full so that's annoying.

So go round in the evening or at a weekend when people are most likely to be at home and see if cars are parked there

It’s not that I think estate agents are liars, but it is a fact ALL their information is second hand and the usual source is the seller. Sellers are notorious for not disclosing negatives to estate agents. Noisy neighbours? Seller won’t mention it to the estate agent. Barking dogs? Seller says, oh no it’s a lovely quiet close. Kids lobbing balls and dashing into your garden? Seller says nothing. Mouldy windows? Seller paints over the mould and says nothing to estate agent except oh the windows are maybe five years old? (When they’re probably 15yrs old).

So, I guess I agree don’t believe an estate agent. But I think the issues with omissions and lies is more because an estate agent has to depend on the seller to tell them the truth and the seller isn’t going to disclose anything that would put off a buyer.

The EA has a financial interest in getting you to buy the house. They don't give a shit whether you'll be happy there.

EAs are salespeople. They are not construction experts, surveyors, legal professionals, economists etc. You need them to let you into the property so you can view it (ideally without following you around and giving you the patter) and answer questions relating to the specifics of the sale/vendor. For everything else, you need an expert, unbiased opinion.

I'd also consider that restrictive covenants often get ignored by residents as doing so benefits a number of them; and it becomes difficult for others to insist on compliance without it escalating or causing neighbourly rifts.

For example, there was a covenant on the cul-de-sac of 10 houses where I used to live that commercial/branded vans or camper/caravans were not allowed to be parked on drives on in the road. Two of the houses had a camper van and caravan respectively, and two of the houses had self-employed tradesmen with branded transit vans parked every evening.

It didn't particularly bother me, but I know it did for a few of my other neighbours.

I never believe a word EAs say. I've had one EA trying to tell me that his opinion was as valuable as a banks!

I think this would drive you mad having people crossing in front of your home and possible lots of cars. There will be another property!