Estate agent won't allow viewings until after a mortgage interview!

newhome4us

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Estate Agent can indeed sue the buyer, until he is blue in the face or gets declared a vexatious litigant. But he will get nowhere. As I already pointed out, he is the buyer's agent and there is no contractual relationship between the buyer and the estate agent, unless the buyer takes conveyancing or financial services - and even this would not give the EA grounds to claim on the buyer.

If I understand you correctly this means that the EA could sue the seller, but not buyer! What happens if the seller is not happy with the EA and pulls their property off the market - would they be able to accept any offers from a buyer that was introduced to them through that EA? Any time limit there? Shady area, no?

I am not suggesting that this is what people should be encouraged to do in normal circumstances:o, but if the EA is obviously not acting fair to neither, seller or buyer, surely then EA deserves all that comes their way

betmunch

If the seller withdraws the property from the market and the subsiquently accepts an offer from someone introduced to the property by the agent the Agent will have grounds to sue if he doesnt get his agreed fee.

The only advantage of doing this would be to allow the buyer and Vendor to conclude the sale without the EA causing problems. (Which isnt normally what they do, but the EA mentioned earlier in the thread was doing)

aqueoushumour01

avoid having a mortgage interview with EA. I had one and the sales staff could hear everything as same room, plus they have access to the advisors' notes. so that's my negotiating position shot!

Ulfar

betmunch wrote: »

If the seller withdraws the property from the market and the subsiquently accepts an offer from someone introduced to the property by the agent the Agent will have grounds to sue if he doesnt get his agreed fee.

The only advantage of doing this would be to allow the buyer and Vendor to conclude the sale without the EA causing problems. (Which isnt normally what they do, but the EA mentioned earlier in the thread was doing)

The position would be different in this case if the EA refused to arrange the viewing and the buyer went round and introduced themselves to the vendor.

The estate agent has to make the introduction.

betmunch

If they buyer went into the EA off the back of seeing the property on rightmove then cant get a viewing due to the EA pulling the see our mortgage advisor trick. Does that not count as the EA introducing the property as it was the EA's advert that promprted the buyer to come in and ask about it?

I always considered that it did so would really like to know for my own knowledge now!

DVardysShadow

betmunch wrote: »

If they buyer went into the EA off the back of seeing the property on rightmove then cant get a viewing due to the EA pulling the see our mortgage advisor trick. Does that not count as the EA introducing the property as it was the EA's advert that promprted the buyer to come in and ask about it?

I always considered that it did so would really like to know for my own knowledge now!

I think it counts as a refusal to introduce.

If I showed you a photo of the regulars in my local and you said you would like to meet them and then I said that I wouldn't let you meet them until you had let me come round your house to measure up for doubleglazing but you refused this and then you went to my local and met the regulars for yourself, would you say in the ordinary sense of the word that I had introduced you?

As seller, I think I would try to cover myself that the viewer had actually been refused by getting a written statement from them. I can see that if EA's took this to the small claims court, they might win on 20%, but I would imagine that this would be due to a poor defence from sellers who were not totally convinced about the wrongness of EAs refusing viewings without a Mortgage interview

betmunch

DVardysShadow wrote: »

I think it counts as a refusal to introduce.

This sounds dangerously like common sense!!!

In my head, in DVarysShadow-world, and in the sensible land its absolutely right, it would not be a introduction. In fact it should really give rise to the vendor being compensated by the EA for making it harder to sell the property when they are getting paid to make it easy for the Vendor.

However, in the real world common sense rarely prevails. Can anyone say with certainty or precidence (sp?) at what point the EA can claim to have introduced the buyer?

DVardysShadow

betmunch wrote: »

This sounds dangerously like common sense!!!

In my head, in DVarysShadow-world, and in the sensible land its absolutely right, it would not be a introduction. In fact it should really give rise to the vendor being compensated by the EA for making it harder to sell the property when they are getting paid to make it easy for the Vendor.

However, in the real world common sense rarely prevails. Can anyone say with certainty or precidence (sp?) at what point the EA can claim to have introduced the buyer?

Well the view from DVardysShadow world is that you would probably find some legal precedent for cases where a buyer has seen a newspaper ad or a property in an EA window and gone and bought the house without involving the Agent. And in that kind of case, I can see that a court would reasonably award the EA his fee.

I think if the case we are talking about hypothetically were to go to court, the Agent would probably be using previous cases as I just described to support his case. I am only speculating, but I think that it would probably hinge on the quality of the evidence that the Agent had in fact refused a viewing to the buyer for not having an interview with the Mortgage Advisor. Probably it would hinge too on drawing a distinction between a genuine prequalification interview and a Mortgage Sales pitch. But active obstruction of a potential buyer should be enough to disqualify the Agent from a fee

Mystery shopping and a statement from the buyer would help no end here. Plus I think it would probably help no end for the seller to sack the Agent as soon as this practice became apparent - regardless of tie ins - and to go through the 'name your introductions' protocol. Agent might find this difficult, because if the buyer/viewer went away without a Mortgage interview, they would not have a name and address. I really am guessing, but I think sacking the Agent for being obstructive would be upheld as reasonable despite a tie in - unless the contract had weasel words which included prequalification in the service spec - unless these were revoked by specific instruction.

betmunch

Thanks for that, you learn something new every day!

magpiecottage

It strikes me that a different approach may be to make a formal complaint of pressurised selling of a mortgage.

Even if the EA is not covered by the Estate Agency Ombudsman, the mortgage adviser will be covered by FOS.

FOS might not know how to deal with it but it will certainly make life difficult for them!