Help Needed Re: Estate Agents From Hell

density

To cut a very long story short, I put in an offer for a house I was very interested in. I am mortgage free and wanted to buy the property with my daughter and son in law. The house in question was a repossesion and was on the market for £72,500. I put in an offer for £75,000. I was told that the property had been put on hold and that the EA would contact me when it was back on the market, and if I needed to up my offer.

However, they did not contact me and I have now noticed that the property has been sold and the people have moved in. Where do I stand on this and what can I do?
Any advice gratefully received. Thank you.

poppysarah

Look it up and see how much it went for (Isn't instant ... look on rightmove house prices or one of the other house price sites)
If they paid less than you offered then you'll be cross but there's virtually nothing you can do about it.
Repos are tricky to buy.

littlened

Nothing you can do I'm afraid, it sounds like when you approached them they already had an offer accepted.

Repossessions are strange, we're buying one at the minute, and although we've had an offer accepted and we've got a mortgage offer in place, they could decide to sell it to someone else next week.

It's likely that they already had an offer from someone to buy the property at a reasonable price, and thought the likelyhood of it completing was high. The estate agent would have said it's on hold incase the property never sold to the other buyers, then they would have come back to you.

princessamy86

The only legal recourse you have is if you can prove your offer was not submitted to the vendors, in which case you can put a complaint in to the ombudsman. Unfortunately, if the agents forgot to call you, or chose not to call you for whatever reason it's up to them. Bad business practice, but their choice. They may well have received a much better offer, repo's are hard work to deal with as the vendors often require all sorts of paperwork and proof of this and that, so the agent may well have gone with someone they knew was a sure bet to buy it. EA may have been sloppy with communications with you, but there's nothing to say that they actually have to contact you at all. Sorry density, better luck next time

Enfieldian

Firstly, was the agent that you offered through the one that actually sold it?

If not then there is one good reason why you were not informed what was happening as corporate clients are notoriously vague with information (the corporate client in this case being the mortgagee in possession) when dealing with multiple agents.

It is possible that they accepted an offer via agent "A" and then informed agent "B" (who you were dealing with) to suspend marketing.

If the sale went through then agent "B" could have been as much in the dark as you were.

To class them as "Estate Agents from Hell" without through knowledge of the facts at this stage is probably a bit rash.

Believe it or not, there are some professional agents out there. (Well there was at least one when I was doing it) Remember that an Agent takes instruction from their vendor client and if those instructions are not forthcoming or clear then there is not a lot they can do.

Alternatively, if you find out that they were the sole agent on the property and they sold it to one of their "dealer" friends or bought it themselves to turn around then you should name and shame them and consider firebombing their office.

Good luck with the next one but as has been said before, repos are very tricky to buy. The seller will always call the shots.

socrates

I mentioned this the other day - there are a lot of brown envelopes about when it comes to repos.

Investors are given (by the EA) the exact amount that a lender needs to sell at - the EA will tell the lender there has been only one SERIOUS offer - funnily enough - the same person who presented them with a brown envelope and the deal is done.

Not saying thats what happened here - but it does happen.

Enfieldian

socrates wrote: »

I mentioned this the other day - there are a lot of brown envelopes about when it comes to repos.

Investors are given (by the EA) the exact amount that a lender needs to sell at - the EA will tell the lender there has been only one SERIOUS offer - funnily enough - the same person who presented them with a brown envelope and the deal is done.

Not saying thats what happened here - but it does happen.

Fair comment, but most of the Building Societies used to employ "secret shoppers" to visit the instructed office and make sure that the property was being advertised in the window up to exchange and make enquiries, even as far as a viewing and offer so that the EA's performance could be monitored.

Then again I used to work for Countrywide and we had all of the Halifax/Nationwide/Abbey repos in the area.