frustrating EA

House_owner

Wonder if anyone has had such a rubbish experience with the estate agent, when we brought a house as this.

We brought our house 6 years ago.

We put an offer in, after waiting a week for the estate agent to get back to us, we phoned them to be told offer had been accecpted straightaway! They told us, they would get in touch with our solictors - they didn't - our solicitor had to chase them up.

House took ages to go through - estate agent giving us no information during the process. Solicitor very good though.

Finally day of completion arrived. Went to collect keys from estate agent, asked about the code for the alarm on the house. They said there wasn't an alarm, even though we knew there was.

We arrived at the house together with a van load of stuff (D.I.Y move), only to discover we had been given the wrong keys

Had to go back to the estate agents to collect the right keys, and they remembered this time that there was an alarm and gave us the code for it.
Vowed never to sell our house through them

housesitter

What I have learnt from my experiences as a FTB is to dump the path throug hteh EA as fast as possible and talk to the vendor.

After our discussions we have come to the conclusion that the EA seems to have been on a mission to wreck the deal and now neither of us are talking to them, they will be informed of what is happening when the deal goes through.

The EA has nothing to add to the conversation once a deal is struck. You are buying a house from a person not an agent, in any other transaction you deal with the seller not an agent. They are for advertising purposes only and very many of them are prety bad at that.

If your vendor is being difficult or cagey then wonder why and perhaps it's wise to look elsewhere.

googler

housesitter wrote: »

What I have learnt from my experiences as a FTB is to dump the path throug hteh EA as fast as possible and talk to the vendor...... If your vendor is being difficult or cagey then wonder why and perhaps it's wise to look elsewhere.

Would you accept that there might be people out there that don't want to deal with viewers and buyers direct, and hence hire an EA to do the dealing for them?

Maybe the reason they seem 'difficult or cagey' ...

housesitter

Yes I do accept that.
In fact that is the very line that the agent gave us when they suggested that all their first viewings would be accompanied by the agent at the house I am purchasing. I told them to get stuffed (in slightly different words) and got a vendor viewing.

I've seen a lot of properties. You miss a great deal by viewing with the agent and not having any contact with the vendor.
There are questions you cannot ask the estate agent either becasue they don't know or because they are trying to put the best face on it.

It's a heck of a purchase. Surely you want the input of the people who currently own it?
Personally, I would be and was wary of people who do not want to talk to me. Straight away it makes me wonder what they have to hide, and if I proceed, just how unhelpful they might be further down the line.

Buying a house seems to me at least to be the most difficult purchase you make. It's accompanied by all sorts of hangers on. It makes sense to me that the two main parties are talking to each other as they are the only ones who really have something to lose.