Ignored by an estate agent

DVardysShadow

doire wrote: »

Brilliant so just offer what the seller wants no matter what? Never mind how long the house has been on sale for. Never mind if he hasn't recieved any offers. Never mind if the seller has to move quickly. Just go in and offer what he wants.

What is so outrageous about that? The buyer does not have a right to buy it. So if they don't offer enough they don't get it. And the seller does not get his property sold. If the seller is not going to be realistic, it is more time on the market and who is anyone to tell him he is wrong?

googler

DVardysShadow wrote: »

But 3 days is far too tight. It speaks of taking a dominant role in negotiations, which won't go down well. A time limit may be necessary [7 or 14 days min] for difficult indecisive sellers - eg probate - where they will not make up their minds, but otherwise, I'm with Doozer. They are to be avoided.

Someone offers you £X for your house, and you can't decide within 3 days if £X is enough? In my view there's only three responses - accept, decline, or re-negotiate on price or other aspects. I don't see why it should take more than three days to provide one of these responses to a firm offer.

For your info, see the Scottish standard offer letter on the third page here - the second of four further conditions - verbal acceptance of offer the same day, with written acceptance no later than 5 days thereafter....

Doozergirl

doire wrote: »

Brilliant so just offer what the seller wants no matter what? Never mind how long the house has been on sale for. Never mind if he hasn't recieved any offers. Never mind if the seller has to move quickly. Just go in and offer what he wants.

Are you reading anything? There were two lines in my post. Where on earth did I say you offer what the vendor wants? I didn't say it there, I didn't say it at any time on this thread, I haven't said it at any time in 14,000 odd posts and evoke didn't say it in their post either.


Apology accepted.

iB1

I think part of the problem is that the British are typically very bad at negotiating - both on the buying and the selling side.

I don't see the point of demanding a 3 day respond time either. If the vendor was away at a conference for a few days and got back to you on the 4th day, would you say "Ha! 3 days is up! Go away". If not, then why impose such a limit? Also, I think that vendor's take a dim view of buyers attempting to browbeat them with statistics of how much they bought for, how much the market has changed within the last four days etc. etc.

I think that being polite, non-confrontational but firm is the way to go - for the vendor, buyer and EA. The EA does sound poor in the lack of communication, but maybe both the EA and vendor feel that you're not going to offer what the vendor wants and therefore there is no point in continuing the negotiation.

Doozergirl

googler wrote: »

Someone offers you £X for your house, and you can't decide within 3 days if £X is enough? In my view there's only three responses - accept, decline, or re-negotiate on price or other aspects. I don't see why it should take more than three days to provide one of these responses to a firm offer.

Exactly. There's no need to actually push people. You might as well phone 3 days later for progress. I can see where a very low offer might be declined in the first instance, it might be wiser to leave the offer on the table for them to consider. After all, if you were confident that the price you offered was fair, you'd still want to buy it a few weeks later if you hadn't found somewhere else.

googler wrote: »

For your info, see the Scottish standard offer letter on the third page here - the second of four further conditions - verbal acceptance of offer the same day, with written acceptance no later than 5 days thereafter....

Which we don't do down here. But yes, when it is formal tender, or in Scotland where it is accepted practice in a differing process then I can see it's fine, but we work generally on pretty informal negotiation in England and Wales (where I presume the OP is due what with them putting forward the offer themselves verbally) so to introduce formal deadlines does go against the grain and would be seen as pushy. When in Rome...

DVardysShadow

googler wrote: »

Someone offers you £X for your house, and you can't decide within 3 days if £X is enough? In my view there's only three responses - accept, decline, or re-negotiate on price or other aspects. I don't see why it should take more than three days to provide one of these responses to a firm offer.

For your info, see the Scottish standard offer letter on the third page here - the second of four further conditions - verbal acceptance of offer the same day, with written acceptance no later than 5 days thereafter....

We are talking England here. The process in Scotland is so different, in that the whole process is much more formal from start to finish. I don't attach much significance to the deadlines - they are more a legal device for ensuring that the offer is not indefinitely binding, rather than a genuine deadline as I read it. Perhaps someone with Scots experience would comment?

In the OP's case, the response has been given. It has been declined and there should be no doubt about it. By putting in a deadline, the OP has [inadvertently?] added the capability to decline by ignoring the offer.

The real problem with the deadline is nothing to do with the ability to decide, nothing whatsoever. In the English system, offers are not made that way and anyone trying it especially with a 3 day deadline is using a 'tone of voice' to convey that they are taking the dominant role in negotiations. This is amplified by the volume of 'justification' going with the offer. Some sellers will not want to deal with a buyer who takes that kind of stance - not just for feeling offended by it, but for feeling that the buyer will generally be a demanding pain throughout the process.

Even if I was desperate, I would not want to deal with a buyer who was quite this pushy with a low offer. If I felt I had to go along with them, I would feel I would have to do something to push them back a bit.

sonastin

googler wrote: »

Someone offers you £X for your house, and you can't decide within 3 days if £X is enough? In my view there's only three responses - accept, decline, or re-negotiate on price or other aspects. I don't see why it should take more than three days to provide one of these responses to a firm offer.

There is a fourth response... I may be able to accept that offer if I can find a bit more cash from another source / renegotiate the price of my onward purchase / make a bit of a change to the plans I had for the money / get my mortgage lender to do a deal for the negative equity it would leave me with / etc. It might take me a little more than 3 days to check that I'm in a position to accept the offer but provided everything else falls into place I'll say yes - when I'm ready.


IMO, deadlines and ultimatums only work if you mean them. There is too much risk of them calling your bluff, so if it is a bluff don't say it. If you said you'll walk if you don't hear in 3 days, start walking...

googler

sonastin wrote: »

There is a fourth response... I may be able to accept that offer if I can find a bit more cash from another source......etc

I'd class that under my 'renegotiate other aspects' - the seller actually responds to the offer within 3 days, but the response is couched in terms of "give me some more time BECAUSE....."

blanche

Doozergirl wrote: »

Not really what? What is the point of the three day thing exactly? You don't want it in three days? If they accepted £340k in four days, what exactly would you do? It's so pointless. Most people can make up their minds within three days without silly demands.

The point of 3 days deadline was that we had not been responded on our first offer until we phoned to the agency ourselves. Plus there is another house we are interested in and the vendor is pushing us with the offer.

The reason I started this tread was that I don’t understand the EA's attitude, why they didn't bother to call us nor on our first nor on our second offer? Thank you for your comments Doozegirl, I understand that putting the 3 days limit was not a great idea, but what was wrong with our first offer? Even if it was quite lower their expectation the EA could contact us to decline it at least. We have been given deadlines to make an offer or walk away in almost every second viewing, the estate agents were bluffing that they had another offer on the table (I assume they were bluffing as those houses are still on the market and some prices have been dropped since).

evoke

Usually it's after the survey where the real negotiations begin. Anyone offering a lot lower than the seller's sell point is having a laugh and the EA is likely to be embarrassed to convey the offer to the seller. Legally the EA has to convey the offer. The seller is going to get mightily p1ssed off with the EA if a ridiculously low offer is put forward, particularly from an FTB.

Put yourself in the seller's shoes for a minute. You've laid down the ground rules to the EA. An FTB puts in an offer well below your minimum price. The EA communicates this offer to you. What are you going to think of the EA? It's an utter waste of time and energy all round.

If you truly want the property then you'll put in an offer that will secure the property, assuming you have the budget to do so.