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.

As mentioned upthread, several times, if the seller has instructed the agent not to do any more viewings or take any more offers, the law then does not obligate the agent to pass anything on.

Searching electoral roles / probate registry etc is fine and well, but doesn't mean the executor or seller is on Facebook.

I went into the EA today and spoke to somebody who has booked me in to see the house! The house has received an offer from a buyer who said they were proceedable (so the seller accepted) but then turned out to need to sell first. They have been trying to sell ASAP but the EA I spoke to hadn’t heard anything about taking the house off of the market in the meantime.

I’m going to view on Wednesday.

Fortune favours the brave. Good luck!

EAs are quite staggeringly crap.

Thank you! I am wondering if the person who made the original offer is friends with whoever was speaking to us on the phone! And putting people off from viewing…

Did you tell them the name of the agent?!

Annoyingly nearly 5 years after purchasing my house, and selling my old house 7 years ago every so often i get estate agents calling or emailing me for days on end, either wanting to show me a property i may be interested in, or stating my house was for sale and do i still need help, even after i email them, or speak to them on the phone and say no, no, stop calling me and take me off your list, it still happens. i think it only applies when they get someone if for work experience or something and say, hey dredge through those 5000 contacts and see if anyone is selling or buying lol, but actually in my 2 years of house hunting while i rented after selling our house, not one estate agent ever called me with a house, evrything we looked at was found by ourselves

A long winded way of repeating “cash is always best”. It isn’t, I have experiences (playing) of both and you can by no means assume the cash offer is a reliable buyer.

Quotation marks imply a direct quote - and I’ve never said anything of the sort.

Of course they don’t - what a bizarre suggestion.

In this context they do. You accused me of “repeating” the phrase (note use of quotation marks) implying I’d said it before. Except I hadn’t.

Oh good grief, speech marks are commonly used around common phrases and assumptions eg “cash is always best”. That is basic usage of English.

The reality is that cash is not always best as I assume you acknowledge by nitpicking based on your own special interpretation of common usage..

I’m simply puzzled by your inarticulacy. “Cash is always best” is not a “common” phrase do you mean - “cash is king”?

Either way you’re attributing to me something in your head that I’ve never said.

Well done!! Formal offer, in writing, full asking, asap you can!

@Abcdefghijklmnoo so how did the viewing go? 🙂

So OP , was it the house of your dreams ?

Write to estate agent with offer. They are legally obliged to pass it to the seller.

Come on OP, pray update us! I had become invested in this saga!

Panorama investigated unethical EA tactics:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg81l57x53o

If you hated it when you saw it, OP, that's OK, we won't judge much

That agent sounds dodgy AF.
I would consider making a formal complaint to the manager and informing the seller.

OP doesn’t know how to contact the seller, or how to cancel the cheque.

👀

So I didn’t actually like the house as much as I thought I would. It needs a FULL renovation (I think you’d be looking at £300k+ to renovate), and we wouldn’t have the cash for this.

I stand by something dodgy going on though. Things the EA were saying just didn’t add up (that there has been no offer accepted on the property yet, but then also saying a buyer pulled out etc.).

At least your mind is at rest and you can put this one behind you! I have to question though, you said the house was very underpriced and also that each direct neighbouring house was a new build at about £2.8 million. So I’m surprised you feel £300,000 is a lot for renovating this property given its £900,000 price. You felt it was being snatched from a family, yet it seems a daunting prospect.

£300k spend is a lot to not notice on the marketing details online

What’s that for
although if it’s £900k on a street of £2mill properties I would expect it to need a good deal of work