Useless Estate Agents

Seanymph

well perhaps not useless, because they have sold both houses - but useless to deal with.

I have bought a house through, let's call them W H Orange - fortunately the owners gave us phone numbers during second viewings, and I'd already agreed prices with them and told them I'd offer the next day - they were thrilled.

I called the agent who was 'too busy' to take my offer (!) - and then eventually after taking it called me back and made like the vendors didn't like my offer (full asking price).......... tough, It's not going up, they are happy matey.

They said to me 'I'll give you the name of our conveyancer for you to use we like everyone to use the same firm'. No you won't, I'll give you MINE.

Well, these people are now buying through the same agents in a different location. They have, by the way, agreed to use 'their' conveyancers for both purchase and sale so we'll see how useful they are.

Turns out on the details they have deliberately put £15,000 LESS than the owner said he would accept to 'get people in' - they didn't put forward the offer my vendors made for five hours (but they had already agreed with the vendor and discussed their offer so were in communication all day) - they called me SATURDAY morning to say my vendors had agreed their purchase - but my vendors called me last night at 9pm to say the people they were buying from had finally agreed to move to his parents and would accept their offer first thing this morning....

AND

They won't issue anybodies solicitors any paperwork 'until the chain is complete' - so despite having 'bought' it last Monday I still have no paperwork to my solicitor!

Thankyou for listening. I feel a bit better now.

But they lie to people and it's not right.

m_13

Ah, estate agents .

When the boiler was condemned in the property we are buying the selling agents told the gas safe engineer to get their instructions from us. As we hadn't even exchanged at that point we refused to get involved other than getting quotes to get the work done.

When the quotes arrived they were delivered to the selling agent. When we collected them the agents said that the vendors wanted us to contribute. We said we'd discuss it. They then told our vendors that we would contribute money that we never agreed to pay. They told the agents we are selling through the same thing and they rang us to say how generous we were being. The vendors then told their solicitors the same thing.

We were straight onto our solicitors but it took days to sort out and we've since not spoken to the selling agents at all. We complete tomorrow and I'm dreading going in for the keys. It didn't help that the vendors used a useless solicitor whose tactic was to simply not respond to calls for days on end.

We should have realised what the agents would be like as when they came to value our property for sale they said that they had a buyer for it. We didn't go with them for the sale and they then tried to get us to let their client look around the property and be excluded from the contract with the agents we had chosen.

The agents we sold through got us a full asking price offer on the first day we were on the market which saved us a lot of tidying for viewings. However, since then they've been hopeless and we've had to chase for updates. I'm going to give them this feedback once we've moved as it's not at all what we expected.

I've never heard of not issuing paperwork until the 'chain is complete' before and we've moved lots. How bizarre. No wonder you are frustrated :mad:

EatingGlitter

I'm having my first experiences of Estate Agents and already it is far from pleasant. We haven't even looked at a house yet and one particular agent is giving me the run around. Four seperate properties we have wanted to look at with them and three of them have been agreed, we have a time to view and then some !!!! and bull story comes out.

1) "That has literally just sold this minute" - why has it remained on your site and rightmove as available for the next 4 days then?
2) "The vendors have pulled the property" - Funny that, on Property Bee it changed to sold and then reverted to available about 2 months later, I think you sold it
3) "The tenants the currently live there are putting in an offer, they need to be approved for a mortgage first and are coming in to chat to us today. Should let you know in 48 hours" - Why would they be doing that literally right now when the market has supposedly been on the market for over 6 months...

As I mentioned in another thread I am a sales person and am familiar with all the tricks that people use to make a sale, make things attractive etc... but this is beyond a joke how many excuses we're getting. It's really put me off even looking at their properties because if this is what they are like for viewing what would they be like if we actually put in an offer on something!

Seanymph

Not just me then!

I always thought the estate agent jokes were not deserved.

I'm beginning to think they may be.

EatingGlitter

Seanymph wrote: »

Not just me then!

I always thought the estate agent jokes were not deserved.

I'm beginning to think they may be.

I have a friend who is an EA, lovely girl and so honest... sadly she is based two towns over and can't help me at all.

The jokes are totally deserved btw!

Seanymph

I have just phoned the again - chasing the details being sent out, you know, the form that details my information, the sellers information, the property address and price and the two solicitors details. The information sheet that, without fail, I've always received the next day before.

ONE WEEK ON and it still hasn't been done. The office boy will 'look into why' today and 'probably call me back' later. Who knew BUYING a house was so damned difficult! My solicitor can't get on with anything because he has yet to receive their notification - and if it doesn't go out today there's another week gone before he can get searches in hand.

Don't they want to sell the damned things?

mufi

We bought and sold through Wilhelm H Orange. One branch, the local 'head office' based in our nearest city, was utterly useless. The other smaller branch, based in the city outskirts, was outstandingly good.

The difference was one had a hopeless manager and the other had a brilliant one. Oh, and their computer systems are even more hopeless than some of their staff.

Seanymph

Well he managed to call me back;

'now the chain is complete' they are issuing the paperwork - which will go out first class today.

Thanks - seven days after they accepted my offer.

I've never heard of such a thing.

thriftytiger

we had terrible problems with estate agents, the one we are selling with could not measure rooms accurately, were out by at least a foot each way. Now a sale is agreed they are totally useless, they never ever ring us and when we ring them they just tell us what we told them last week. I get the distinct impression that they don't really care whether they sell our house or not.

The one we are buying off told me that the people we are buying off had had their offer accepted on an empty property and that the chain was complete, this was during negotiation (!!). Now three months down the line, our solicitor tried to exchange contracts last week and it turns out there are three more parties in the chain above! and it sounds to me as if the last sale has only just been agreed! I was very cross with the EA who told me it was empty but she says she thought it was, the next EA thought it was, the people we are buying off thought it was, and our solicitor thought it was. Someone is BSing here.

top and bottom of it I have no idea when we will be in a position to exchange contracts......arrgghhhhhhh

Seanymph

blimey thrifty I thought I had it bad.

Mind you, there is a lesson in there for me because they have told me the people above me (I am moving into their house) are now moving into an empty property. Perhaps they aren't!

thriftytiger

well yes, and how can we find out? Our solicitor says she didn't know because they are not allowed to 'chain check' - I don't know exactly what this means but can hazard a guess..

the weird thing is that our solicitor is also working for the person buying the last property in the chain, so when she called me to tell me exchange/completion was all off, she said 'I thought it rang a bell'! How could she not have known she was working on two properties in the same chain?