Offer on repossession - can estate agents do this?

jojoe90

Hi all,

Brilliant forum - has been invaluable to me for mortgage advice tips.

I have just been in to see a local estate agents to prequalify myself financially to make an offer on a repossessed property. All the finance stuff is in place (50% deposit - lucky me!). I have an Agreement in Principle set up through London and Country, who've been very helpful and diligent.

According to the mortgage advisor in the branch, there are two other offers on the table which will all be put forward together to the bank now that I've been in to see her. Apparently, both the other parties involved are getting their mortgages arranged via her - and she said, "as this will make the process smoother, this could be a factor with the bank if your offer comes in at the same price as the others". This sounds like BS to me, but I'm obviously keen not to annoy the estate agent just before they're due to make their recommendations to the bank.

I fudged it, saying that seeing as I had only just had the credit search made for my original AIP I wouldn't want to do another today and gave her the impression that if my offer was accepted I would come to her (but not in so many words).

Do the estate agents have that much leverage over which offer gets accepted by the bank? The repossession is with the Halifax.

All comments gratefully accepted.
Best regards,
Jo

theartfullodger

I wouldnae trust most Estate Agents further than I could throw them, I have a "bad back"...

Cheers!

Lodger

DVardysShadow

It is a difficult one, you don't know whether the other offers are real for a start, but if they are then you have only a 1 in 3 chance of getting the property, so you need not to hang too much on it. I think with repo's some agents may try to milk the sale more and there is not a lot you can do about the arm twisting over the mortgage - you played it about as well as you can.

This is a example of why I am beginning to think that Agents should not be permitted to offer mortgage services

samroo

Normally with a repo the bank has to advertise when it has an offer on the table. You may have seen them in the paper saying we are in receipt of an offer of £xxx for the x property. Anyone wishing to make a higher offer should contact blah de blah within x days. So I shouldn't worry too much at the momet.