Help! Estate agent nightmare.

Dazman_2

Hi Folks.

This my first post and it may ramble a bit. Please forgive me.

Ok, My partner and decided to move in together and started looking at house's. We stumbled accross one that was perfect for us and our children and made an imediate offer which was accepted.
I am in rented property and my partners house was sold,awaiting completion.

Two weeks before completion, my partners buyers pulled out with no explanation except "we're thinking of moving abroad".

We told all the relevent people involved what had happened.

Within two days of them pulling out, another offer was accepted. We thought this was very lucky and let everyone know that everone was trying to push the sale through as quickly as possible to avoid any further delay.

This was fine until July 21st which was the previous date for completion.
I took a call from the vendors estate agent saking why the sale had not been completed. He insisted that he knew nothing about any delay.

On speaking to our solicitors, they told us that everyone was informed and and that they had written confirmation from the vendors solicitor.
The estate agent refused to accept any of this and was very aggressive in his tone. He told us that he would be advising the vendor to put the house back on the market. We explained that we were in a position to complete the sale quicker than anyone else, as we already had our mortgage in place, searchs complete, survey done etc, etc.
He was not remotely interested in this.

I should point out that the house we are TRYING to buy is vacant. It has been rented out by the very wealthy vendor since it was built, so we are not disrupting any chain.
Our solicitor, the vendors solicitor and ourselves saw this as nothing more than a delay, which we all know can happen in these situations.

The estate agent has put the house back on the market as of today. All he would say is that, IF we complete the sale of my partners house within 3 to 4 weeks, he may ask the vendor to reconsider her position.

The vendor is an elderly lady from a wealthy family and i feel that he has taken advantage and misinformed her of our postion.
His attitude towards us seems to be very personal, almost as if we have offended him in some way.

Surely most would agree that we are in the position to complete this purchase and i would have thought that despite the delay, the best advice would be to move ahead as quickly as possible.
After all, there may not be another offer on the house for some time and surely it would not be in anyones interest to take that risk.

What i'm asking is, can anyone think of a way for us to save this situation?
I've contacted the relevent people with regards to complaining but he is not registered with them. It is a small family run business and he is in charge.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and once again, sorry for rambling.

Thanks.

Squidgy

surely he is a member of the estate agents ombudsmen?

Dazman_2

No he isn't. I contacted them yesterday and he is not a member.
Thats the worrying thing, he seems to have nobody to answer to.
His name is the name of the business, therefore i can't complain to anyone above him.

Squidgy

get chatting to the solicitors then. Ask the vendors solictor to contact the vendor and explain the situation on your behalf, or get them to make a formal complaint against the agent.

Or see if he is a member of the National association of estate agents and go to them.

Dazman_2

I've spoken to both.
Once again, he's not registered.

The vendors solicitor was in full agreement with us but as the vendor is very elderly, contact is difficult.

We were thinking of trying to delay the estate agent by asking friends to put a fake offer in. It's not ethical i know but i don't know what else to do.
If he takes an offer, real or not then the house is off the market, giving us time to complete our end of things. Then the new offer will be withdrawn, leaving us as the only viable alternative.

Please believe me, i don't want to get involved in anything underhand but i'm at my wits end with all this and feel very ill-treated.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

MissMotivation

It sounds as if they EA has had no contact with either yourself or the vendor's solicitors, if he had then he would have known that the sale had fallen through. Some of the blame has to lie with you as IMO you should have informed the EA yourself to avoid a problem such as this.

Unfortunately if the is not a member of the NAEA or the Ombudsmen Scheme you have no-one to complain too, especially if he is an indepandent agent and it's his business.

The likelyhood of him selling the property again and getting someone to complete the sale quicker than you is extremely unlikely, I would try to insure that your sale is pushed through asap and make sure you give him regular progress reports.

Onice the sale has completed I would send him a stinging letter of complaint.....not that it will make any differance apart from making you feel a little better!