Are estate agents allowed to do this?

lelole

Hi all, first of all, thank you for all of your replies...

A bit of an update... I had a phone call first thing from the agents this morning saying that our offer had been declined. I did take that opportunity to say to the person I was speaking to what had happened and that I was not particularly happy about it. I told her that I would like to still see the property, particularly if they had declined our offer, we would need to have a look and decide how much extra we would be prepared to pay based on what we felt we would have to spend on the property.

She then said to me that they are only willing to accept the asking price and no negotiations! Looking online, it seems they did pay quite a lot for it in 2006, and apparently they have their heart set on a property and they need full asking to get it...

I was gobsmacked, as surely they should have said this from the start, and ended up saying, well we aren't likely to pay asking if we can't get to see it, so there's no point talking about it anymore, and told them to give me a call if the vendors wanted to reconsider negotiating...

I guess this answers the question as to whether it was vendors or agent - I can only assume they were offended by our first offer, and have dug their heels in, which is a shame as we would have gone higher!

By the way, we also received two letters from Bradleys - one stating our first offer was " unacceptable" to the buyers, and another saying our revised offer had been forwarded in writing...which must have been sent yesterday...

Leah

picardygirl

Lelole - not sure if i agree with the EA should have told you from the start that they were looking for full asking price, maybe when you put in an offer, they could have mentioned, the vendor is looking for asking price so unlikely they will accept an offer £23k under asking price, but will put offer to vendor anyway.

If you are still interested in the property go back again for another viewing, and maybe the vendors will accept a slightly less than asking price offer, or are you just not interested in the house at anywhere near the asking price offer? After all they are not going to say they'll accept £5k off the asking price, because they will get offers lower than £193k - good luck whatever you decide.

chickmug

picardygirl wrote: »

Lelole - not sure if i agree with the EA should have told you from the start that they were looking for full asking price, maybe when you put in an offer, they could have mentioned, the vendor is looking for asking price so unlikely they will accept an offer £23k under asking price, but will put offer to vendor anyway.

The problem here is the assumption that the seller sticks to their decisions about what they will and will not accept. In my experience they can say one thing one day and change their mind the next.

picardygirl

chickmug wrote: »

The problem here is the assumption that the seller sticks to their decisions about what they will and will not accept. In my experience they can say one thing one day and change their mind the next.

Absolutely

lelole

Hi guys,

Thanks for your replies... The thing is, I do understand that they would say that the seller wants asking, it's what I would expect. We were making a lower offer to start with so we could negotiate upwards. The thing that flabberghasted me was the fact that she said they only wanted asking, no offers.

What I meant by they should have said was that this was said to me during the conversation which we had after our second offer was made! So I felt that it would have been something that should have been said either upfront or after the first offer...

It just all felt counter intuitive and difficult. However, we have managed to arrange to visit on Saturday, and I guess we go from there as to what we do...

Thanks

Leah

picardygirl

Hope the viewing goes well on Saturday - you may get a better feel for what the vendors are actually looking to achieve on another viewing.

dfh

daveypoos wrote: »

The easiest way to tell if an Estate agent is lying is to look at their mouth, if their lips are moving then they are.

Ha ha ha ! That is priceless !

typeractive

Just to add a little more about the EA I am trying to buy through – not only did they lie to me where I caught them out red handed – NO WAY around that I’m afraid (read my post at the top of the page), but I also think they have lied again.

Long story short I managed to meet a previous potential buyer last week. We had a really good chat for a good couple of hours – feel like I’ve made a new friend really. Anyway, they were very nice and had all documents that they had collated when they were trying to buy the property – they showed me everything and it’s all the same as what I have.

When looking at surveys I was wanting to contact this previous buyer as they had one carried out. I asked the EA to contact the buyer and see if they would part with the document at all. Literally 3 minutes after my conversation with the EA, they called me back saying that the previous buyer would not be interested. At first I though: “my god they were VERY quick in contacting that other buyer”…truth of the matter – they didn’t.

When I met the other buyers last week I specifically asked them. Now of course they COULD be lying, however I SINCERELY doubt it. They welcomed me into their family home (which is very nice), they showed me everything, let me take stuff away and offered any help in the future. This makes me believe more than anything that they are absolute lying !!!!!!s – and there was no way they even called them – my suspicions were correct.

I will NEVER sell anything through them: Rude, Obnoxious, lying, lazy a$$e$. I’ve done more work than they have in the buying process…in saying that I am a bit of a control freak – heh.

On a lighter note though – I would have sold a property through Chickmug – he seems to be a nice estate agent on here (albeit no longer working as one), with good advice. :beer:

chickmug

typeractive wrote: »

On a lighter note though – I would have sold a property through Chickmug – he seems to be a nice estate agent on here (albeit no longer working as one), with good advice. :beer:

Thank you.

Believe me I am thoroughly ashamed that agents, like this, give the better ones a bad name. The posts I read bear no resemblance to how we worked day to day.

As I said to someone earlier there are those that lie, those that don't lie but still do a bad job and those that don't lie but who do a good job. The problem is finding the latter. 'Needle in a haystack' in some areas.

i1189

I've also known an estate agent to lie - when we looked round our house, there was a lot of furniture left, and as the owners had moved out months before we asked the agent to see if they'd been interested in selling any of it as it went well with the house. He came back and said they wouldn't.

We bumped into the vendor just before completion, and he said what a shame we weren't interested in buying any of the furniture, as it had taken him ages to put it all on Ebay! Turned out he had asked the EA if we would be interested in buying it and he had said no to him as well.

This was the same agent who didn't bother turning up at all to what should have been our second viewing though so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised...