I hate estate agents

KTJ_2

Am I being unreasonable here?

The survey on the house we are buying flagged all manners of problems. 1 particular problem was a decayed timber joist and a beetle infestation. The mortgage offer is dependent on this problem being remedied.

Apparently the wood had been treated back in 1995 and had a 30 year guarantee. The company who did the work have come out and agreed to respray but will not repair one of the joists unless a charge of £300 is paid.

My opinion is that as we are going to have to spend a hell of a lot of money getting the house back into a good condition, we would expect the seller to pay for this 1 problem as it was not apparent when we put the initial offer in.

I have had the estate agent on the phone to me saying the seller isnt willing to pay for it and that I should be lucky I have got the house at the price it is and "to be careful".

...we are still in negotiations. but I'm flabbergasted that the EA would threaten me. He has been obstructive and rude throughout the process and even colleagues who took messages from him said he was incredibly rude to them.

to be honest, im not sure what to do because I dont want to lose the house so if she refuses to pay..I guess im going to have to pay for it myself on top of all the other repair costs.

....sorry. rant over. I had to get that off my chest!

OxJak

Reduce your offer by £300 (and you might as well include the cost of any other work that needs doing), or get your solicitor to put a condition on the contract that the work will be done. The EA is legally obliged to pass this on to the seller. If they've got any sense they'll do something about it, because any worthwhile survey will flag up this problem and I imagine most buyers would not want to accept it as it is.

We had a couple of relatively minor queries over our new house, but our solicitor was great and put things on the contract that the builder agreed with straight away. Most of them were just for peace of mind, but it helped to have it in writing.

As the previous poster said, if they don't accept this then leave it.

lush_walrus

Perhaps they are just offering you the truth of the situation. Ultimately, house reductions after surveys are always down the vendor not the EA, all the EA can do is advise their client on what they feel the client should do. In this case I think you can safely say that the EA will be advising the vendor to not reduce the price, but perhaps the vendor wouldnt anyway.

How do you feel, do you think it was a bargain price or not. If not, then simply move on.

KTJ_2

The worse thing about this is that my solicitor (or should I say assistant) said they dont get involved with things like this and that I have to negotiate with the EA myself! I wonder what im paying them for to be honest.

I can't afford to lose the house now as I have been priced out of the market. Unless of course I move to a grotty area....and lose my buyer in the process.

lush_walrus

Well, I hate to say it but your solicitor is right, it is the EAs position to actually negotiate between you and the vendor. All the solictor can do is once an agreement has been made put it into the contract, they certainly can not do this without the agreement of the vendor.

With the solicitor you are not paying for them to contact the vendor ever. They just don't do it and if they do it is definately an extra rather than anywhere near the norm.

Go into the EA tomorrow and speak to them directly about this point. Be nice and you may get what you want. EAs are the same as most people and try harder for those that they like.

If prices have risen and you were the vendor you would probably also be aware of that fact, and perhaps see it that if you do drop out it may be an opportunity to get an extra x amount of cash from a new buyer, even if they do then accept that they have to carry out some work, they may well end up quids in for the sake fo £300.

silvercar

KTJ wrote:

I can't afford to lose the house now as I have been priced out of the market. Unless of course I move to a grotty area....and lose my buyer in the process.

Then you have no opiton but to pay for the work to be done yourself, if you start again now you will probably be more than £300 out of pocket.

If you do decide to reduce your offer it is erfectly reasonable to instruct your solicitor to inform the seller's solicitor of this.

lmac22

We had a similar problem a few weeks back with our survey flagging up quite costly problems.

We had the same EA trouble, he was extremely rude to us, bascially telling us that the vendors would not budge on the price and stating basically 'surveys' always flag up these problems and why were we bothering them about it!!

We were so annoyed but stuck with it, basically saying we wanted a reduction on price or we'd pull out. After some time (and with our soliciotr involvement, which i sympathise with you that you don't have) the EA came back to us with a reduced price from the vendor. Not as much as we wanted but still something.

So my advice would be if you really want this house do not give up negoatiating so easily. Do not let the EA's bully you, after all they are only providing a service to the sellers so all decisions lie with the sellers ultimately.

I really do sympathise with you and wich you good luck x

lilyann1

Yes when we had our survey done it flagged about 15 things that we will need to get sorted once moved in.
Things like:
1)wasps nests in loft
2)Re pointing of front garden wall as leaning
3)Removal of wisteria on house and repointing of brickwork
4)asbestos in garage roof
5)lots of maintenance issues like blocked downpipes with leaves and some guttering needs replacing etc

We got a good price on the house in the first place as the vendor said that the electrics and gas might need checking and some sort of rewiring done in the first place,which the survey did bring up too.

We felt that we were getting the house at a good price and have just taken all the faults in the survey on board and will do them when we move in!!!
Depends if you got the house at a bargain or not.
As for the EA being rude I wouldn't stand for it and would speak to the manager and report him.

KTJ_2

lilyann1 wrote:

As for the EA being rude I wouldn't stand for it and would speak to the manager and report him.

He is the manager.

anyway...my wife had enough and rang the buyer directly. The buyer was mortified at the EA's rudeness and said she was going to complain about him herself as she has been less than impressed at this service.

We've negotiated between ourselves and what would have taken an age through the EA has taken 5 mins.

What can I do to complain about the EA. I feel that he should be reported as I would hate to think others were being treated the same way. I suspect theres not an awful lot I can do.

TJ27

The best way to complain about estate agents is to not use them in the first place. There are plenty of other ways to sell your house.

My brother got an idea of how much his house was worth by looking at other properties in his street. He then had a few valuations by EA's to confirm this.

Then he put a notice up in his front window, "For Sale - Tel:xxxxxxxx". The house sold for the full asking price within a week. The sale completed quickly and he saved a few grand in fees. No stress at all.

The alternative would have been to pay an EA a couple of grand for a whole heap of problems. Why bother?

I'm sure he was lucky but it's got to be worth a try if you're selling!