Estate agent ghosted us. Should I knock on vendor’s door?

[sellotape12]

I know this sounds insane! We live in a popular neighbourhood and have been offering on a house, going back and forth on tight negotiations.
But then the agent completely ghosted us, like he suddenly avoided our calls and emails for weeks (and even once pretended not to see us when we walked down the street!? This man is selling our house also).

We found out by accident the house has gone under offer to someone else and I’m both heartbroken and furious. Why didn’t he call us? We’d have been happy to continue negotiating up. My sister reckons pop round to the house and either knock on or or slip a note under to find out if the vendor ever actually received any of our offers. They can tell us to go away of course but at least we might get closure. Or is that just massively stupid?

We really want the house. But conscious another couple has been probably conveyancing now for 2-3 weeks.

@MrsBlondie that’s what I’m thinking. It probably won’t amount to anything and I accept that but yeah, what are we losing? It’s a last ditch attempt to claw back. We might peeve the EA, but so what? We might find out it’s a “no” but at least we’ll find out if our offer ever was submitted

@sellotape12 go tonight knock on the door and ask , nothing to lose, everything to gain

As the agent has ghosted you for weeks can you go to there office/ shop and speak to them in person?
If your now no longer selling you need to let your buyer know before they invest time and money into solicitors .

The agent found OP a buyer whose offer they accepted. Its a sale in principle

If OP reads the terms of her sale contract she'll probably find she is now contractually bound to pay the agents bill for arranging the sale . Even if she now withdraws the house and lets down the buyer

Her mention of trying to black mail the agent with threats probably illustrates the kind of idiotic "negotiations" that lost her the purchase of the new house and why he cut her off .

You've already "peeved the agent", both as a buyer and a seller (if you pull out of the sale letting down your buyer.)

"So what", is that you still want to buy and sell in future, and local EAs all know each other and swap warnings about bad clients. You could find no agent will touch you with a barge pole.

What you risk losing is your own reputation as a credible buyer and seller.

This 💯

Does your agent know this? Because if so, he knows that his commission on your sale disappears once he confirms you haven’t been successful with this offer. Is he inexperienced and hoping you’ll just sail on with your sale if he doesn’t actually have the conversation with you?

@Leftoverssandwich yes I think so. Also news just in is the head office just phoned me (on a Sunday) to explain that proper procedure has not been followed and he’s looking into it. The area manager was grovelling and understanding. So I feel reassured that this is not me feeling plain old sour grapes, something slightly untoward happened on this. And when you’re talking hundreds of thousands of pounds & a huge decision, I think you have to trust your instinct and follow something up if it doesn’t feel right.

Oh, you didn't mention before that you'd contacted head office?

Just to add... I didn't call you petulant. I was responding to another poster (I quoted them, so it was obvious) who told you to drop them from your house sale and tell them why.

No one on the internet is being horrible to you.

In your OP you said you had been "going back and forth on a house in tight negotiations" or something like that.

And then much later on you say the EA never told you if your offer was rejected or accepted.

I don't believe you could have been going back and forth with the EA if you didn't know about the status of your offer.

You can't muck around with house sales. No one has time to second guess anyone in the whole chain. Just be plain. Get it in writing. If you don't get a reply from a written conversation ring them up and record the conversation.

I look forward to hearing what has actually happened! Fingers crossed it works out for you.

Estate agents are legally obliged to pass on any offer.

But there’s no evidence to suggest that they haven’t. The most likely thing is that the agent hasn’t passed on the rejection of said offer, which is shit, but not illegal.

Not true. If a vendor has given instructions that they don't want to hear about any offers under £X for example, the EA is not obliged to pass those on.

My DS was house hunting wanted a house with a bigger garden found what they really liked so decided to put their house on the market thought they would use same estate agent as they seem to sell plenty of houses in the area and as he is only moving a mile away thought easy for viewings etc. All went well they put in an offer on the house estate agent then wanted him to use their broker and solicitor he said no thanks already have a broker and are using a solicitor who is quite local that our great niece recommended (she is a solicitor) that she was at University with and worked with her for a year when they then both moved away so they accepted that. They had quite a few viewings of their house and an offer which they accepted although did find out the chap was self employed and had been for only a short while in most cases applying for a mortgage you need at least a year or two accounts before most mortgage companies will accept you anyhow the estate agent assured them it would be no problem at all as their broker would sort it all out anyhow he didn't so it fell through since found out he was a friend or relative of the estate agent. Another couple then came around loved the house said they would love it first time buyers have broker and solicitor lined up and would put in an offer next day then it all went quiet for 5 days then the chap came and knocked on the door and said they had put in an offer to the estate agent and they said it wasn't enough although asking price so DS said they have never contacted me put in an offer for £1 more yes £1 and I will accept it and he would contact agent in the morning which he did. Estate Agent just couldn't really explain why they hadn't passed on the offer DS is wondering if it was because they weren't born in UK are from an EU country and also not using the estate agents broker and solicitor so not getting 2 lots of commission or backhanders whatever you want to call it. Anyhow everything was sorted contracts signed and exchanged last week and they complete and move tomorrow. DS is not very impressed with the service he has received from the Estate agent and would not recommend them to anyone.

We have been in the position of viewing a house when ours wasn't even OTM. I went to see it because it was on the road we wanted to move to. It had been for sale for quite a long time with no takers (a not desperately desirable doer upper) so perhaps the vendors and EA were happy to allow it because they were getting desperate. We viewed twice and offered and offer was accepted. We put our house OTM and it was sold in 5 days. The whole transaction eventually went through. But I know and appreciate we were very lucky to get it because the vendors were willing to allow a couple of viewings when it might not have been all that convenient for them and on a gamble.

19 years have passed since then and I things are very different now. If the sellers of a house don't want to engage with people who aren't ready to go then they don't have to. Buyers always need to remember this.

Update for all the kind people who were super helpful! We found out it also happened to another couple in our neighbourhood who’d been looking at the same house. An internal inquiry was launched by the area manager, and it was found that the selling agent had offered preferential treatment on the house to ‘a relative’ (that’s all we know.) It explains why he didn’t return calls or emails. He didn’t return them to the other couple too.
It doesn’t change a thing for us because obviously the house’s owner is still going with his active buyer. And since this cheeky agent is also selling our house (hence why he was phoning me a lot), we have switched to another agent within the same company just to get it through. Anyway we are about to offer on another house which, whilst a little more expensive (😩) is on a nicer street. Wish us luck! We are exhausted.

and always trust your gut.

Well that should have been information that was declared to you under the "conflict of interest" rules that apply to Estate Agents. You could take it further if you can be bothered ... but it sounds like you've found a better house. Good luck!

Absolutely spot on HayleyBay, the commission an EA gets on a buyer getting their own “mortgage broker” can be substantial.
OP something similar happened to me, the tide turned when I didn’t want the EA’s mortgage broker. Blanked my calls and emails, so in the end I bit the bullet and popped round to see the vendor. I told them what my offer was and the EA hadn’t even let them know the offer was on the table.
Funnily enough two days later smarmy shiny suit called me to tell me (through gritted teeth) my offer had been accepted.
When I completed and went to pick up the keys he didn’t even look up from his computer screen and one off the ladies dealt with me.
Whilst I understand sales targets have to be met, this does not give an Estate Agent the right to f around with peoples lives. There’s more bad ones than good ones out there imo.
OP truly you have nothing to lose by approaching the vendor direct, because there is that doubt in your mind and by what you’ve wrote about the EA, he sounds a bad one.
good luck and fingers crossed for you.

That was my first thought too.

Good luck OP, I hope it works out for you.