Estate Agents not letting us put in an offer?

[Abcdefghijklmnoo]

Hi all. We have no experience with dealing with estate agents so I was hoping someone would be able to advise on the below!

We really want to put in an offer on a property. It’s listed on Rightmove (and has been for 5 weeks), and is a £900,000 house on a street full of £2m+ properties. The area is full of elderly people in average properties that are then typically snapped up by developers and resold for insane amounts.

I initially rang hoping to view the property after it has been on the market for 2 weeks. I was told that there are to be no more viewings as the seller has accepted an offer in principle, but was waiting for them to sell their own house. End of call.

I rang back a week later and asked about the house again as it was still on RightMove. I was told that it was still on Right Move as it hadn’t sold as the seller was waiting for the buyers own house to sell. I asked if I could view as I may want to put an offer in too and was told no as the buyer had accepted the sellers offer (then surely it should be taken off of Right Move?).

A couple of weeks on and the house is still available to view. I rang off of another number and was told the same story again.

Can anyone shed any light onto this? Surely if the sellers are waiting on the buyers to sell, then they may still be interested in receiving new (potentially higher) offers? I can’t help but think something dodgy is going on by the estate agents as the house is such a bargain in a very desirable area.

No I’m not. But some posts have been incredibly rude suggesting it’s abhorrent that I havebt just completely accepted what the EA has said as the truth.

I’ve given my advice ad nauseam over the thread. You can read back if you want.

I would put a note through the door and say you are very very interested. Is you house under offer, are you in a better position to the seller than the original offer people?

Just because the buyer is not proceed able does not mean its still for sale - it means they have accepted an offer in principle based on the buyer selling.

There is nothing suspicious in what the agent has told you, nothing at all.

You can of course keep checking in to see if its fallen through and back on the market, but they are not going to change their message to you until that happens.

You seem determined to find a nefarious explanation but surely the most likely scenario, as it seems to be going through probate, is that there’s a grieving family who doesn’t want to go through the hassle of bidding wars and making the most money possible and would rather just list it cheaply and go with the first offer without added stress at a difficult time.

Why do you think you’re entitled to all this info?

There are thousands of houses on RM that have had offers accepted and are not marked SSTC.

Pop a letter through the door of the house. Say you’re a cash buyer and can proceed without delay. Leave your number and ask to arrange a viewing. If it gets no response, then leave it - they aren’t interested.

This is very likely. My friend bought a house in London for half its value because the elderly lady living there died and the family wanted a quick sale to someone they knew.

The lady’s children were in their 50s and were just not motivated by money.

The one that almost every estate agent puts into their contract. The period is usually 12 weeks. During this time, only the estate agent can market the property. It’s designed to protect agents by preventing sellers from getting frustrated and switching to a competitor after a couple of weeks. However, it also covers private sales - for example, someone simply putting a card through the door and saying they’re prepared to offer direct rather than go through the agent.

You know - as people are suggesting the OP should do.

Most estate agents won’t let you put in a formal offer without viewing. You can make a note of interest to offer and provide your prove of funds. It is strange they have allowed someone not in position to proceed to offer as when I have worked in estate agency we wouldn’t have allowed someone not SSTC to put a formal offer forward

Its quite possible, that if, as the agent says, the buyer still has to sell - that it has been agreed, either verbally or in writing that the buyer has a period of time to find a buyer and be in a proceed able position.

If it is priced cheap and the seller is in no hurry, there is no risk to them in that, as there will be willing buyers in x number of weeks time IF the buyer ends up having to drop out.

I work in an estate agents and the property is unlikely to be marked SSTC until they have verified finances etc which if the offerer has yet to agree a sale on their property they will be unable to do.

Seller may have instructed to stop all viewings on the basis of this offer but I would say this is unusual as it could take the other people forever to sell their house and is probably poor advice from the agent. We would never advise to stop viewings on that basis.

Legally if you put in an offer even having not viewed the property the estate agent has to report it to the vendor. Put an offer in but say its subject to a successful viewing. It might make the seller realise that your offer/position is better and they could get a faster sale! Once you say you want to put a formal offer forward and a figure they have no option but to report!

Our experience of EA has been they can really mess you around! Yes there has been the odd good one but mostly have had success from contacting the owner directly. Either by putting a letter through the door or checking on the Land registry website and contacting the owners that way. Yes there could be a straightforward explanation but there could also be what a few posters have mentioned about EA doing deals with builders/developers.

This normally just means that you can’t circumvent their fee. Not that you can’t accept offers from other sources, nor that the seller couldn’t insisted the EA arranges a viewing & manages the offer. Because, well, ‘you know’, the seller still owns the house…

The executors might be the beneficiaries

OP if you’d had an offer accepted on the condition you sold your house ASAP, woukdnt you then be pissed off if the seller accepted an offer from someone else? That’s how we got our current house :) offer accepted as long as we sold within 2 weeks, 2 sales for the estate agent (the one we sold and the one we bought), happy days all round.

Hurray, some good advice.

This is your problem, @Abcdefghijklmnoo. Too much presumption and not enough fact. You cannot take any action here based on presumption.

Fact:
I rang up when the property had been on for just under a week (IIRC). Yet was told that an offer had been accepted and no more viewings.

Perfectly standard practice. Most offers are made on the condition of no further viewings. Your annoyance that RightMove hasn’t been updated is irrelevant. It’s irritating, not illegal.

Fact:
If you put an offer forward, the estate agent is obliged to put it to the vendor - unless they’ve specified no further offers, or no offers below a minimum level. As you haven’t put an offer forward, any speculation on this thread about what the agents would do with it is moot. You could put an offer forward without viewing, but given your unusual circumstances of a large budget and zero experience with estate agents, I would advise against it.

Fact:
The ombudsman isn’t concerned with your speculation. You need facts. People telling you to make a complaint are doing you a disservice. You have zero evidence of any wrongdoing.

If, at some point, you were able to come by the information that the property was sold to a party connected to the estate agent and had proof of this, you could THEN make a complaint. It still wouldn’t get you the house you want.

Fact:
It’s common to the point of universal that an estate agent will have an exclusive marketing period in their contract. Even if you put a note through the door and the sellers respond, the agents will argue that, under the terms of their contract, they are still entitled to the commission. And they will win. You wouldn’t know the property was for sale without their marketing. It wouldn’t necessarily stop the sellers accepting your offer, but it won’t do you any good to suggest they can save on commission.

I know exactly what it means. And it means that if the OP is hoping to say “Sell to me and you won’t have to be commission!”, she’s barking up the wrong tree.

We had a local estate agent that did this with a lot of church properties... One of the vicarages we were interested in and refused a viewing on (we had sold and had an OIP) was sold for £100k under is value to the son of a friend of the EA.. as luck would have it I bumped into the son that bought it as we had children at the same school and he explained to me the great deal he got! They had just held it on the market with the lie that a offer had been accepted to buyers and eventually just sold it under the real value because the church took their word for it being as no one else had even bothered to view it...

You seem to be having trouble understanding what we are saying which is not that you should have "completely accepted what the EA has said as the truth".

Many of us have said the EA is very likely telling the truth, but to be sure you could drop a note/letter into the house for the current owners to read.

What the EA said makes sense to me and I don't think there is anything particularly weird about the way they phrased things.

Some EAs do keep properties on their website for ages after an offer has been accepted. It is one of my pet peeves against Dexters estate agency in London for example, that half their properties listed as For Sale have actually already been sold but haven't got to completion yet. It's frustrating as a buyer but not suspicious, they just do it for marketing reasons.

I initially rang hoping to view the property after it has been on the market for 2 weeks.

I rang up when the property had been on for just under a week (IIRC).

I rang to view within a couple of days of it being on the market

Just noting three different timelines across three OP posts here. Not that it’s hugely relevant - if an offer was accepted and further viewings put on hold before OP called up, that could have been the hour before or the week before.

Some EAs don't like cash buyers. Commission is paid by some mortgage companies to EAs for referrals (another stream of income). It is probably the same when the property is being bought for development.

Estate agents are legally obliged to pass on every offer to the buyer up until exchange of contracts, unless they have written instructions from the seller not to do so.

In your shoes I would email an offer, say you are happy to offer without viewing, and tell the EA that you expect your offer to be passed on to the buyers in accordance with the EA’s legal obligations.

The fact that the buyer has accepted an offer or has said no more viewings does not negate the obligation to pass on other offers.

I agree this all smells fishy.

When a developer is buying land, there is often a clause that the seller be entitled to an extra % when the development is complete or of the sale proceeds.

A friend of mine sold his bungalow to a developer, the deal was he got the price for the bungalow - which was a low is price, but then 10% of the sale of the 6 houses being built - the agents get a cut of that pie too, and in this case got the first 12 weeks marketing of the new houses exclusively.

So it was a good deal all round.

Nothing to suggest that is the case here, but its how it can work.