Ignored by estate agent

[lalalalalala2024]

We viewed a beautiful house on Monday evening at 6pm. The person who showed us round was the sister of the estate agent ( independent) and said any questions you would need to contact her sister.
The next day I asked two questions the sister could not answer and that we would like to put an offer in the property. She did not reply to my email and the next day I rang her and sent another message explaining that we would like to put an offer in.

We have still not heard from the estate agent and have seen that it is now SOLD stc.

I’m upset with the lack of communication, it would have been nice for her to say it’s now been sold.
I can’t complain as she is an independent estate agent but can see she has Google reviews which I’m reluctant to complain on.

Just wanted to vent as we’ve been house viewing for a while.

Definitely put a note through the door. My DD and her husband viewed a house as first time buyers and put an offer in. It was refused immediately. They were told they couldn’t increase it by estate agent. They put a note through the door to discover the agent hadn’t passed their offer on at all! The sellers were furious, sacked the agent and took their offer. Suspicion was that it Was a friend of the agent or someone getting their mortgage through them that had previously offered.

I wish I was surprised by this.

Good luck OP, hope you are successful in finding somewhere if not this house.

Same!! I have quite an issue with estate agents but let’s not get into that right now! My husband is a property developer and has had this happen a few times, it drives you mad the people showing the properties don’t know anything about them particularly when you are expected to then drop a huge amount of money to buy it.

We had the same thing last year! Sale ended up not going through and last time I checked it’s still on the market almost a year later. Deffo pop a note through the door, even if it’s only the EA that picks it up, might make them think twice next time.

As an aside, we ended up finding an even better house that was cheaper and needed less work doing, so keep looking for ‘the one’. Good luck OP!

FTB’s don’t usually have the level of equity needed for certain types of houses (especially renovations). Particularly if a chain has collapsed twice already, it might be bad luck or there may be issues with the house and surveys, they probably want an experienced buyer on it. You didn’t do anything wrong. However if competitive bidding is the way it’s playing out, you’re best just to make your offer and save questions for the legal process.

Me too - this happened to us in less than a day, think our EA woman had links to the buyer - fortunately another EA bought the business eventually and as months had passed and original buyers couldn’t complete we got the house.
It helped that I rang weekly to ask if sale was going through, took 4 months. After 4 months new EA took over they then decided house sale was dragging on (4months and no completion or anything) and contacted the woman (me) who kept calling.
I just knew the house should be ours and this was long before manifesting was a thing.
So my advice is leave no stone unturned!
In hindsight I should have contacted seller myself immediately and not waited 4 months but then we’d have been in a bidding war and paid much more for the house.
Also by then we’d sold our house and could complete within a few weeks - that made a big difference too.

It sounds as though they were already banking on these other buyers, had already entered into negotiations on price with them and were just keeping you on the back burner in case the other people didn't come through. If she was confident she'd achieved a good price for the client and happy with their position to proceed she probably didn't want to complicate things by adding you into the mix.

When someone makes an offer to the agent they are legally bound to pass it on to the vendor, even if the house has already gone under offer with someone else. Most agents are very reluctant to disrupt a progressing sale this way unless there is A LOT more money in it for the client, and therefore for them.

They will avoid spending time on new enquiries if they think throwing another potential buyer into the mix is going to slow the whole thing down and lead to the vendor prevaricating for a few extra thousand. The different it makes to the agent's fee in percentage terms is very little and not worth the hassle. That's why she avoided your calls.

You can still put forward an offer if you want to and she'll have to let the vendors know. But unless the offer is significantly more than the current one they've accepted (they don't have to tell you so you'll have to offer full asking price to be sure) and your position to proceed is significantly better compared to the other people, (no chain, not dependent on your own buyer, cash buyer with no finance needed etc) then she is unlikely to be falling over herself to engage with you. She's done her work, she doesn't want to do any more for no better a result.

If all of the above applies, you can afford to pay the full asking price with no quibbles and that is not dependent upon having a ton of questions answered, then by all means put forward a FAP offer. Send her it by email and by text message. Put a letter through the vendor's door confirming that you've done this to make sure she doesn't try to avoid telling them.

But unless you are in that strong a position, move on and accept that you you've missed the boat on this one.

You're a FTB who has lost a house they are interested in. You have nothing to loose.
I've owned, bought and sold several properties and can tell you that I wouldn't trust EA as far as I can throw them and when I found a great one I held on for dear life and they have sold 2 properties for me since.
It could be an under the table offer for less than you were offering or part of a chain when the seller needs a quick sale you don't know that and are trusting the EA when they have already shown that they arnt proffessional.
If it was me... I'd put a letter through the door with your number on it. Say how much you loved the house and how disappointed you were it was sold and that despite you wanting to make an offer you weren't given the opportunity. Depending how that goes it could be breach of contract between the seller and the EA.
You have to shoot your shot...if it's not meant to be it's not meant to be but make sure you arnt going to be annoyed later on if you find out it went for less to the friend of the EA!

Again...you have nothing to loose... good luck!

This.

It doesn’t matter whether your offer was higher or lower. you are first time buyers prospect with no chain that increases the value of your offer. Good luck with contacting them directly.

This exact same thing happened to us only last week! We loved the house and said so at the viewing but we wanted to know just 2 things before formally putting the offer in. The EA said they'd find out and get back to me the next day but we had radio silence. I rang the following day and spoke to the receptionist who said they'd pass on the message. Again, nothing and by the 3rd day I called and was told it had sold that morning and there was nothing they could do.
We're so disappointed and also wondered if they knew the buyers or something 😕

In my area this seems standard Estate Agent behaviour. When we were actively looking to move house about two years ago we lost out on so many properties due to their general incompetence/ poor communication/ shady operations. I think often there is bribery going on, a game we refuse to play, and we gave up in the end. When we researched some of the sold prices on Zoopla they were often lower than what we had offered (and we were in excellent position, no chain etc). As a PP has said about some estate agents not putting all offers through to the vendors, I do believe this does go on. I wish we had investigated further and reported to an ombudsman.

This happened to me too. Similar.

I put a note through the vendors letter box saying if the sale goes wrong please come back to us.

It went wrong. They did. Now in my lovely new house.

X

We also said we loved the house but everything was through her sister so we couldn’t formalise anything It’s such ashame as I really liked it aswell but everything happens for a reason and something will pop up

I have gone back and popped a note through the letterbox and just mentioned if it falls through again we are interested and would’ve loved the opportunity to put an offer in

What's meant for you doesn't pass you by.
X

Def. go with the people that suggested putting a note through the door.

A friend of mine had her heart set on a place and it was the owner that showed her around. She put in an offer but didn't hear back and eventually found out it was sold.

By chance, she bumped into the owner in a pub a week or so later ... he did ask why she changed her mind as she seemed so keen when showing her around. She said she made an offer ... but the seller said this was not passed on. They were both very cheesed off!

It may be other potential buyers that are in the same situation as you - they also made an offer, not passed on, The only one accepted was a mate of the EA / no chain / cash buyer / extra commission. The other buyers could have offered more. That should have been for the seller to decide.

Your explanation isn't completely clear, but it sounds like you said that you'd like to put an offer in. That's not the same thing as actually making an offer. If you want to make an offer, you can do so - you don't need anyone's permission. But until you've actually made an offer, the estate agent isn't under any obligation to tell the seller about your interest.

If you're still interested, just make an offer rather than pussyfooting around. Either directly to the seller or via the agent.

That's illegal not to pass on an offer, I hope it was reported.

Let us k ow of they get in touch

The agent has to put an offer to the vendor. But they can make things really difficult! I was proceedable having sold ex marital home. The agent was insistent I wasn't despite confirmation from our Solicitor. Long story short, I put a note through the door and got the house after another offer had been accepted.

Again, OP, this is where you’re going wrong. You’re being too laid back about this. You need to be much more assertive and direct. None of this ‘would like to make an offer’ stuff. Make your offer! It could be it’s £20k over the offer they’ve accepted. If you actually told them your offer, they might consider it.

Noooo, you need to actually make the offer!

I had similar a few years ago. Saw a house online and was told that they would be taking offers from a certain date so the morning of the date I called first thing and put an offer in. They said they couldn't take an offer without me viewing it so I argued about that and said that my viewing it was neither here nor there. It was a cash offer. They said OK. Didn't hear anything. Called a few days later and they admitted they hadn't put my offer forward. I eventually found out it had been sold for less than my offer.