When should EA's stop telling you about 'interest' in your house?

puddy

well just a bit of info from the other side of the fence. we had an offer accepted on a property on thursday morning. i asked that it was taken off the market and all viewings cancelled which i have been told was done. i provided my solicitors details, my own estate agents details and my mortgage details, names and numbers.

now, when we applied to 'port' my current mortgage, we were making an offer on a different property (that was never accepted) so i had to ring the mortgage bloke who is dealing with me to give him the details of the property we are now buying.

i couldnt get hold of him or anyone in the 'team' until friday afternoon. i was nearly crying with frustration with the 'automated telephone system' that kept telling me 'im sorry, i missed that, please repeat your mortgage application number'

when i finally got hold of him, i gave him the details of the property and he said that this would probably reach their authorisation centre on monday and then after about 3 days, if all was well with the authorisation, they would instruct the survey.

so, the property owners are probably going to wonder why on earth it is going to take over a week to arrange the survey.

now a new problem, when i first instructed my solicitors to sell my flat, i also asked them to deal with the purchase of the next property. they said that as no property was in the pipeline at the time, i would just let them know when i had found a property and then instruct them.
so, thursday after having the offer accepted, i phoned them and said, we now have a property, i want you to deal with the purchase please.

she said fine, i'll get mr admin person to give you a quote as we have to do that before you properly instruct us. he was supposed to email me, but i havent received the email. im now worried that when the estate agent rang my solicitor, she may have said, 'oh no, we havent been instructed for the purchase yet'.

next problem. i am selling my flat. its leasehold. the buyers solicitors have asked for 3 years of the accounts and the latest buildings insurance certificate, as well as 33 separate queries.
well i have the accounts and the certificate, so i photocopied these and rang the buyers solicitor (after phoning my own to let them know what i was doing, they were fine) and said that i would pop in with this information in order to speed things up. the buyers solicitor's secretary said ' we are not supposed to be even speaking to you, we can only speak to you through your solicitor' AND that i would need to send the photocopied documents to my solicitor who would send them on to them!! I live 30 seconds walk from the buyers solicitor. My solicitor said that this is 'ridiculous'.

next problem. my solicitor has told me that my management company has requested fees for the request of the 33 queries as above. to speed things up, my solicitor asked that i pay my landlords direct to get the queries sent back as soon as possible. i phoned my management company who told me that they cannot accpet money straight from me, only via my solicitors and then ONLY by cheque. they will send out the replies to the queries when they have confirmation of the cheque being sent.

so i phone my solicitors to tell them this, again nearly in tears with the frustration of idiotic logic, she says that i can pay them to put funds with them, but that the card payment i make will take 3 days to be authorised, by which time they will send out a cheque to my landlords.

arrrggghhhhhh

so its not as straight forward as it seems, and im frightened to phone the estate agent to explain in case they think im making excuses and too difficult to work with...

question though, if i didnt have a solicitor and was dealing with this myself,, who would my landlords and the buyers solicitor think they would speak to,,, they would HAVE to deal with me directly wouldnt they

devilot

Well it looks like my instincts were correct as I received a call today to say our buyers were pulling out. :mad:

So thanks to the EA's incompetency, who knows how much interest has been shown (I can't get a straight answer from them regarding whether they have taken names and addresses of people down).

ETA - when we finally got the memo of sale, the accompanying letter asked us to confirm in writing that we no longer wanted the property marketed.:mad: They bloody decided that one for themselves, didn't they?

I've written a formal letter of complaint to the branch manager today (it helped to get it off my chest at least), other than that i've spent the day in tears - worse still, our sellers are putting the house back on the market

I feel like !!!!!! at the moment, completely emotionally exhausted.:o

chickmug

devilot wrote: »

Well it looks like my instincts were correct as I received a call today to say our buyers were pulling out. :mad:

So thanks to the EA's incompetency, who knows how much interest has been shown (I can't get a straight answer from them regarding whether they have taken names and addresses of people down).

ETA - when we finally got the memo of sale, the accompanying letter asked us to confirm in writing that we no longer wanted the property marketed.:mad: They bloody decided that one for themselves, didn't they?

I've written a formal letter of complaint to the branch manager today (it helped to get it off my chest at least), other than that i've spent the day in tears - worse still, our sellers are putting the house back on the market

I feel like !!!!!! at the moment, completely emotionally exhausted.:o

As a retired agent I feel very angry for you to have read your story and hope you can get some satisfaction with your complaint. Are they members of any professional body you can complain to.

You may wish to name and shame them. It is not their fault the buyers have pulled out but they should have ben at your side for you and tried a bloo*y sight harder, and earlier, to have brought it to a head

devilot

chickmug wrote: »

As a retired agent I feel very angry for you to have read your story and hope you can get some satisfaction with your complaint. Are they members of any professional body you can complain to.

You may wish to name and shame them. It is not their fault the buyers have pulled out but they should have ben at your side for you and tried a bloo*y sight harder, and earlier, to have brought it to a head

Thanks chickmug - they are members of the OEA but I'm not quite sure what rules they have broken, any chance you can advise, please? The manager asked me to put my concerns in writing to him today, and he said if he can't resolve it, it will be passed to the regional manager etc. Can a complaint go in to the OEA at the same time?

angelavdavis

devilot wrote: »

Thanks chickmug - they are members of the OEA but I'm not quite sure what rules they have broken, any chance you can advise, please? The manager asked me to put my concerns in writing to him today, and he said if he can't resolve it, it will be passed to the regional manager etc. Can a complaint go in to the OEA at the same time?

Have a read of this.

chickmug

devilot wrote: »

Thanks chickmug - they are members of the OEA but I'm not quite sure what rules they have broken, any chance you can advise, please? The manager asked me to put my concerns in writing to him today, and he said if he can't resolve it, it will be passed to the regional manager etc. Can a complaint go in to the OEA at the same time?

On the OEA I am not sure and with being retired for just over a year and would hate to say something that is not up to date. Why not call them (OEA)and ask. However from what you have said I am not sure there is any rule broken and sadly sloppy service never seems to get covered by rules.

There is no reason why you can't complain to several differing parties at the same time. I guess it it a multiple office operation so why not take your complaint to their HO and blow the regional manager.

Generally I always felt the smaller independents were better to deal with if you picked the right one and deal with someoe whose living depends on your sucess. Like the owner, or director, partner.