Arsey Estate Agent!

clg86

We are in the process of buying a cottage that was built in the 1800's and if it isn't stressful enough buying a house, the estate agent that it's up with is being a complete !!!!!

The mortgage lender did their own valuation survey, which came back fine and they were still lending us the money, but because of the age of the house and how much we are paying for it we were told by our financial advisor that he would recommend us to have a home buyers survey as the valuation survey doesn't look in as much detail.

We got this organised asap but when the estate agent found out, he called me up and was telling me it is a waste of money and there's no point because the lenders weren't going to drop the price anymore! He was really blunt with me and I didn't know whether i was more angry or upset with him. I explained that we were doing it for piece of mind given the circumstances and he basically said if we didn't get it sorted by the end of the week, the house was going back on the market!

Anyway, the report has come back and there is nothing major on it, just the "usual" problems, so i e-mailed the estate agent out of courtesy telling him it was back and i have sent it to my solicitor, but she is unfortunatley out of the office until Monday. He then called me again and left yet another arsey voicemail saying the vendors need an answer of yes or no whether we are buying the house! I was too upset to call him back so i've just sent him an e-mail explaining that we really do want this house but surely our solicitor needs to go through the report first???

I don't know what to do, I can't express anymore to him how much we want this house and we are only going off advise from the people we are paying to make this a "stress free" move, but he keeps threatening us that if we don't hurry up, the house will go back on the market!

RacyRed

Make sure the vendors know how difficult this EA is making things for you. They are the only people who can rein him in.

Write to them or even arrange to go round and measure up, do whatever you have to do to ensure they realise the EA is driving their buyer away.

ciano125

Just tell him yes, you are buying it. Nothing is going to happen over the weekend anyway. I'd also make sure he knew that if he continued to be a knob, you'd refuse to deal with him and would go direct to his clients, and make sure that they knew exactly why you were doing that.

Nothing worse than unqualifed, jumped up, arsey estate agents who think they know best, especially ones with over sized knots in their ties. I'm sure there are some good ones, but I've yet to deal with one.

maninthestreet

Your solicitor won't be interested in your Homebuyer's Report.

JQ.

I'd imagine they're a bit concerned that you're holding up the process by having 2 surveys done? If you knew it was an old house, why did you not get the mortgage valuer to do the Homebuyers Survey?

You never know it could be the vendors who are annoyed. As a vendor I'd find it strange that someone had a survey done that came back fine and then had a second survey done. I'd think you were desperately searching for ways of trying to chip the price and I probably instruct my EA to say exactly what he has said to you.

I hope you don't mind my comments, I'm not having a go at you, I'm just trying to show what the other a side might be thinking. I'm assuming this has probably delayed the process by a couple of weeks.

scooter_chick

JQ. wrote: »

You never know it could be the vendors who are annoyed. As a vendor I'd find it strange that someone had a survey done that came back fine and then had a second survey done. I'd think you were desperately searching for ways of trying to chip the price and I probably instruct my EA to say exactly what he has said to you.

I'm in the process of buying a 350 year old house, and I'm having 2 surveys done. My mortgage lender does not do a full structural survey, and for a house that age, that's clearly what I need. I stated from the start that's what I was doing, and also that I was going to wait for the mortgage valuation to come back okay before I paid for the full structural. And I fully expected the vendors to understand my position - if they hadn't, I'd have wondered what they were trying to hide!

moggylover

scooter_chick wrote: »

I'm in the process of buying a 350 year old house, and I'm having 2 surveys done. My mortgage lender does not do a full structural survey, and for a house that age, that's clearly what I need. I stated from the start that's what I was doing, and also that I was going to wait for the mortgage valuation to come back okay before I paid for the full structural. And I fully expected the vendors to understand my position - if they hadn't, I'd have wondered what they were trying to hide!

I think this is common sense in all sales involving heritage type properties tbh. Certainly my own home is over 150 years old, and thus (despite the complete renovation and the picks of it in a near demolished and stripped state) I would expect anyone wanting to purchase it to want a decent survey done and not just a flick around and "yeah" from the building societies valuation.


Op, I would suggest you ask him what there is that he is aware of that is worrying him;)

Doozergirl

I think that you should speak to your vendor if possible, just to reassure them. How long have you been buying this house for? It does sound like there is some frustration on the other side, it isn't usually the EA instigating the threats, it's the person on the other side pushing the EA.

Also, it's already been said, but your solicitor has absolutely no interest in the results of your homebuyers report. All they need is the mortgage offer from the lender, which we would hope is already in considering the time passed since the valuation.

The condition of the house is neither here nor there to your solicitor so you seem to have got the wrong end of the stick somewhere. It might have been nice if the EA could have explained this nicely to you!

So what's next? Are you nearly ready to exchange do you think? Would it help to start pencilling in a date for exchange - speak to your solicitor, see what they think.

Why do solicitors always have Fridays off? It must be one of the few professions where it's the busiest day of the week. It's like Santa taking Xmas off!

Vincenzo

It sounds to me like the vendors might be desperate to sell? Either that or the agent is desperate for his fee!

I never allow the mortgage lender to arrange a homebuyers or structural survey on my behalf and hence have always had 2 separate surveys. I would recommend others do the same. This is because comments in the survey may be detrimental to your loan application. This is also a reason you should not pass on the survey to your solicitor unless you are happy for the mortgage lender to see it. Your solicitor acts for the lender also.

As one of a few examples I can think of........a friend of mine was purchasing a '4 bed' house. The original valuer had agreed that the purchase price reflected market value. The separate homebuyers survey picked up on the fact that the loft room had not been converted within building regs and therefore strictly speaking was a 3 bed.

My friend provided the report to his solicitor (after I advised him not to do so!) whilst he tried to negotiate the price down. The vendors would not budge and he decided to progress with the purchase anyway. In the meantime his solicitor had duly informed the lender who asked their valuer for an opinion on the effect on value. The only answer the valuer could give was that it reduced the value and therefore the lender reduced the amount they were willing to lend on the property. He did manage to proceed in the end but only by putting down a bigger deposit.

SmlSave

Hi OP, I would just stop talking to the Estate Agent. IMO they've done their job and its now up to the solicitors, yourself and your sellers.

I bet you a shiny penny the estate agent just wants his fee

Richard_Webster

Also, it's already been said, but your solicitor has absolutely no interest in the results of your homebuyers report. All they need is the mortgage offer from the lender, which we would hope is already in considering the time passed since the valuation.

In a way it is a pain having to read through them, but clients often want us to do so and advise them insofar as we can on any legal points that come out.

The thing is that sometimes the report will highlight something that we wouldn't otherwise have known about e.g. an extension that the sellers didn't mention in the forms they completed and was not obvious from the estate agent's particulars. We would then have to follow that up asking about consents etc.

If we didn't do so our client might come back to us later asking why we didn't check the consents for the extension and it wouldn't be a good excuse that we didn't read the survey!