My buyer wants to come round and conduct his own 'survey'

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The agent reckons its not a big deal but I think it's a bit odd. He's 'in the business' so he's doing it himself rather than paying someone to do it for him. But I'm a bit concerned that he'll use it to screw some more money out of us. We already dropped a bit of the asking price for him.

I don't really fancy anyone coming round now - I spent ages keeping the house spotless for viewings and it isn't now - not to mention we've started packing and it's chaos.

Is this normal? Or am I right to be concerned.

No, not surveyor, but a specific solicitor to handle the conveyancing. But I must admit I thought it was odd.

But no, it doesn't bode well

I'm sure that's not legal.

The only thing I can think of, is he a broker? Sometimes brokers offer you the brokerage free in exchange for you taking one of their associated products. We did this with life insurance, we took the broker's life insurance in exchange for free brokerage on our mortgage.

Could it be that - ie if you take their advice you have to use their solicitor?

Otherwise I really don't think a bank has the right to choose your solicitor - at least not in any sale I've ever been involved with.

Thanks.

To be fair the broker did say he wasn't sure. But as I can't get hold of him I can't check!!!

I may go ahead and get things moving with the conveyancer we had already arranged anyway.

I would certainly use your own independent solicitor - there's no way anyone can force to use someone of their choice. The bank certainly can't (and I don't think they'd want to get involved with that side of things anyway - leaves them open to all sorts of problems).

It might be that you've agreed to some deal with the broker, as theyoungvisiter said, so check the small print on anything you've signed!

my buyer did this - did 2 viewings and then a 'survey' when him and his friend came round for 2 hours and poked all over the house. Made me very nervous but we heard nothing so assumed all fine. Then the day before exchange he came back with a list as long as your arm of 'deffects' that he wanted a £10k reduction for. The list was hilarious - 2k to lop some trees at the back that are fine, £3k to relay the kithen floor as there were 2 cracked tiles, £2k to clean the gutters etc ! We told him politely where to go and he still exchanged. He was just trying it on but it was a stressful day or so.

Sorry but I think it is worse because he is buying it for someone else. We had the same thing, hence the stupid number of viewings. There is no emotional attachment for the person buying BUT that said, they know the daughter wants it which puts a lot of sway on it.

We had the daughter round with boyfriend to look at ours, and then second viewing. Started making offers but they were stupid ones. Then the parents who were actually buying it as investment property for daughter to rent came to view it and then the proper negotiations started.

Then surveyor, then parents back to see property with survey in their hands.

Then daughter rings just at point of very stressful exchange to talk through how everything works like the heating etc.

I totally lost it at that point, we hadn't even exchanged, this was the Tuesday, they wanted to be in on the Friday, I had removal men booked for Thursday and Friday and to top it all I had just been to my mother's funeral who was like my best friend.

Luckily I lost it at the poor estate agent who rang to book the viewing. We exchanged on the Wednesday at 4.45pm, we had an email written and ready to send at 4.50pm to the removal company to cancel them and the phone in my hand to confirm they had the email before 5pm cut off.

Then we lived in a hotel for 3 weeks whilst we waited to move into the dream house I am living in. I am surprised I am still sane or am I now so insane that I can no longer tell?

My advice, breathe, stay calm, any defects he comes up with tell him that that was taken into consideration when the property was valued. Good luck.

Thanks

mouse- glad you called his bluff!

fizzy, sounds like you have a really hard time. So sorry about your mum

MA turned up last night so mortgage application all done and dusted. He has confirmed we can go with the conveyancer we chose so off to take them the forms and documents they want at lunch time.

god its all such a hideous process isn't it. At the end of it I felt like everyone was out to screw us and everyone was devious ! ( we had a buyer before that one who dropped his offer by 50k a few days before exchange, so we dropped him !)
Good luck with it all.

Suggest you say that you want the buyer's realtor to accompany the buyer on his visit.

after we sold a house, the female half of the buying couple wanted to come visit to measure something. she had nothing else to do, DH must have been at new job. she stayed a couple hours while I went about with my work. she tried to get my washer or dryer added in to sale.

this happened 34 years ago, is still irritating! If the realtor had been there, he could have dealt with her. I'm sure that is not how he would want to spend time.

hansie - unfortunately the realtor is busy that day. Or I would. I feel very uneasy about it TBH. But don't want to discourage the buyer.

I think having the estate agent there is very wise. Personally I think the more visits a potential buyer makes, the more dangerous it is for the sale process.

Oh dear Bit late to put him off and the agents don't have anyone to go with him. I can't say no now. But I think I will have to make this the last if I can.

yes make it clear it will be the last visit. Good luck - am sure it will all be fine, it's just very stressful.

Well I just rang and asked if we could delay it for an hour so DH could be there. Was OK.

Thanks for your advice mouse

yes yes, boost your army, very good idea to have dh there too. Fingers crossed !

Dh rang to say he's just turned up. I have given instruction to follow him around discretely . Dh tells me I'm a nutter.

Hope it went well!

As FTB we had no idea what no of visits was normal and probably went too often as we wanted to be sure. Our situation was really complicated by the EA telling us the vendors bro was "poorly" (and quite dismissively) and that's why everything was taking so much longer. It turned out he was dying from a brain tumour but we put on pressure because I was heavily pg and she stressed she wanted an quick move - all unknowing of how serious her situation was. I don't think I will ever trust EAs again... I think they try and provoke disharmony. If she had just said she needed a bit of space we would have understood, or if the EA had said 2 visits was the norm... Grrr at the memory.

How awful That was quite unfair of the agent.

It went OK. He only wanted to look in the loft which he liked as it has lots of exposed brickwork and is a good space. Check the size of the garage and stick a screwdriver in the living room floor to see if the floor boards were in good nick (they are).