Vendor direct contact - your experiences

Bufger

I wasnt sure whether to send the Vendor a letter giving them my contact information if they want reassurance or a chat at any point along the process. I dont know if they will feel pressured or harassed by me doing this? i also know it will start getting frustrating for the both of us at some point due to the communication between solicitors and EA's etc. I dont mind telling them exactly whats happening in the process from my point of view and i wouldnt mind knowing directly if they were having trouble etc.

Would you contact the vendor direct just to offer that support? what do you think are the pros and cons of doing this? will i upset the EA by doing this? (wouldnt mind some EA's opinions).

Thanks in advance :-)

Jewel_2

I don't think you are 'allowed' to as this may form part of the legal contract.

Hippychick

There is no law against it, we did this exact same thing and gave the vendor our phone number.

Tbh it helped because if either of us needed to chase anything up we were able to without going through EA, solicitors etc, small downside was my vendor got a bit annoying texting me every day almost asking for an update!

We did exchange within 3 weeks though and I am fairly certain it would have taken longer had we not been in contact.

DVardysShadow

Jewel wrote: »

I don't think you are 'allowed' to as this may form part of the legal contract.

Sometimes your solicitor or the Estate agent might get shirty about it, but there is no law against it and no one to 'allow' it.

ognum

I gave my buyer both my phone and email number, she never used them but thats fine at least she could if she wanted.

bandofbrothers

The only downside of exchanging contact numbers I can think of is if the sale falls thro or gazumping/gazundering takes place, and either side getting the hump !

Scary thought : Silence calls or abusive calls/texts.

Doozergirl

It's fine to do that. I've always found that when things get diffiuclt it's better to talk directly as you can easily think that someone is being obstructive when in fact they are as keen as you it's all coming through chinese whispers.

Sometimes we have had direct contact with our buyers, sometimes not. Sometimes it just goes smoothly and there's never any need to talk. The house is usually empty when we're buying so there's no choice.

sallycanwait

Hi Bufger

Interesting you ask this as we went down to see our new house to be yesterday and the couple we're buying from were lovely. She went round the whole house saying did we want this, did we want that, is leaving all her garden tools, etc and is going to let me know how much she wants for them.

We also discovered as I thought that the offer being accepted on the condition we use the same solicitors was a lie made up by the EAs who are on commission. Apparently she'd also told them to let us know that we can come and see the place anytime we liked or to pass on her phone number. None of which the EA did.

We have now agreed to leave the EAs out of the loop as much as possible as they definitely can't be trusted - pretty angry really as the solicitors are expensive but we didn't think we had a choice.

It's nice talking directly to the vendors (and she can talk bless her!) as we can both share our excitement and easily ask any questions - the EAs constantly needed chasing.

Not sure it will speed things up but reassuring to know they are as keen to keep moving quickly as we are.

Running_Horse

Just don't end up the one in the middle of it all trying to sort out EAs and lawyers, and keeping everyone happy. Let the professionals earn their money.

NUFC_Rob

it worked for me, but as mentioned above, if you have a very twitchy vendor terrified of things falling through, prepare yourself for a lot of emails and phone calls!

dirtmother

We've found it really helpful - when our first purchasers' circumstances changed it was so much better coming from them - and when we found another buyer I am sure it came better hearing it from us.

You have to watch out that you don't cut EAs and solicitors out of the loop inappropriately or end up doing work they are being paid to do but it can speed things up. We did let the EA and solicitor deal with telling our buyers that we didn't have any responsibility to do certain things they expected us to do

I have dealt with vendors who wanted nothing to do with us and insisted everything be done through official channels but at least if they've got your details it is their choice.