Agent won't accept offer

Yorkielass

Our house is currently for sale, and my mum (who hasn't sold a house for over 30 years!) really doesn't understand why we aren't looking at houses already but until we have an offer we aren't in a position to proceed and so we've done lots of research in the area we want to move to and have spoken to mortgage providers and know what offer we could accept and so hopefully if we do get an offer we'll be in a good position to look at a new home that we can afford.

DVardysShadow

doyouwantfrieswiththat wrote: »

Thats ridiculous, whether you can buy or not the EA must pass this offer on, I am in NI too and selling and would be FURIOUS if the EA done this, who is the EA you are dealing with?

It is not clear from the OP whether the Agent is refusing to pass the offer on or whether he is refusing with the authority of the vendor. If he is acting under vendor's instructions it is fine. But if he is acting on his own initiative it is wrong. OP should probe for the authority the EA has to reject the offer - and if the Agent is doing it as a policy of his own, the OP should try the 'note through the door' approach, politely stating the offer subject to contract, the fact of the EA refusing to pass on and contact details.

penguingirl

I think try and be positive about it- it also protects the buyers. If I sold my house to someone who wasn't in a position to move I would be much more likely to encourage the EA to market the property (even discretely if it shows as SSTC) and accept another offer from a proceedable buyer (a FTB, someone not in a chain or someone sold) and my original buyer would be out of pocket from the survey and conveyancing, plus would be upset. And obviously the longer the buyer takes to sell the more chance that this would happen. I guess it was different in markets would you could sell in a week, but things are so rubbish for vendors at the moment.

Good luck selling your property! You never know, it could still be on the market when you are ready to move.

ash28

bonrosie wrote: »

I live in N.Ireland and we have recently seen a house we would like to buy. We phone up to put an offer on it, but the the estate agents selling the house have told us they will not accept an offer until we have an offer on our house! Our house has only been on the market for a couple of weeks and we have had not interest as yet - but it is early days. I find this a bit unbelievable - surely the chances of us finding a buyer for our house at the exact time we find a house we want to buy are very slim. There has to be a gap somewhere in the chain.

Is this now standard practice? I am very angry as we could lose this house if we can't sell ours quickly. We also don't want to be forced into accepting a rubbish price for our house. Anyone else encounter this?

We instructed our EA not to pass on offers from people who weren't in a position to proceed - so it meant that if you hadn't sold your house we wouldn't have known about your offer.

It was the same with our new house - we had to be SSTC to be able to put in an offer. And his EA rang ours to find out the state of the chain before they put our offer to the vendor.

When we put ours up for sale we told the EA that we were prepared to move into rented to allow a sale to go ahead.

Mallotum_X

Stick a note though the house door to the vendors, with the details of the offer and your contact number. Include in it that the agent refused on pass on the offer. If you are sure that the vendor hadnt requested the agent to only pass on proceedable offers then the vendor may not be too happy with the agent. If they had made such an instruction then nothing lost.

System

Speaking as a recent seller (my mother's house) I observed that there was a lot of behind the scenes contacting and checking of the state of the chain, and the likelihood of various parties being in a position to proceed.

My estate agent verified the credentials of the offerer by asking colleagues, spoke to the buyer's solicitor to verify that he had indeed got a firm mortgage offer, and was then in a position to recommend to me that we should nearly move down to the offered amount because he was clearly good for a quick sale.

Had the offer been from someone without a firm sale or a mortgage offer the EA had instructions to reject it.

Whatever the market is doing a seller needs to view each offer in the light of its likelihood of materialisation. Just because it's a falling market doesn't mean he wants to accept quickly. A failed sale only makes his position worse.

theartfullodger

Suggest you write (yes, write), keep copy, email if you can agent - calm, polite - with your offer and requesting they pass offer on.

If they refuse to do so stick copy of your letter, with covering note - calm,polite -, through vendor's front door. You've nothing to lose...but any further cooperation from agent in future...

Daft thing is (obviously..) if everyone waited until a purchaser had sold their place (to whom, someone who'd already sold??) before accepting offers then the house sales market would grind to a halt fairly fast... (Consider case with only 3 people flogging houses in NI, no other houses on offer..., no sales agreed... deadlock.. : It's harder on the brain with 1,000s of properties but it's still true )

Estate Agents eh??

Artful (With degree in sums..)

chopper78

Mallotum_X wrote: »

Stick a note though the house door to the vendors, with the details of the offer and your contact number.

Why? It would make the OP look desperate and if they did sell their house in 3-6 months and this house was still on the market, the OP would be in a weak position with regards to renegotiating that original offer. Hold your cards close to your chest rather than showing them straight away.

Tell you what, I'll offer you £500,000 to buy your house. I'm not in a position to proceed with a sale on that basis, mind, so that makes it a completely pointless offer, right? For sure if your house was for sale right now, you wouldn't take it off the market and refuse to consider other offers on that basis...

penguingirl

theartfullodger wrote: »

Daft thing is (obviously..) if everyone waited until a purchaser had sold their place (to whom, someone who'd already sold??) before accepting offers then the house sales market would grind to a halt fairly fast...

But that doesn't happen because people are FTBs, move from rented accomodation, or split up with partner, or BTL, or have cash savings, or increase their mortgages massively... it's hardly like all buyers have houses to sell before they can get another one.

If I was selling I wouldn't sell to someone in the OPs position, not when some properties are on the market for a couple of years and there are a lot of unrealistic sellers out there not willing to drop their prices. I think JQ lists the reasons why pretty well.

DVardysShadow

JQ. wrote: »

I wouldn't accept your offer as you're not in a position to offer, you're offering money you don't actually have. You need to sell your house before making offers. Reasons I would not accept an offer off someone who's not sold:

• It could take them 5 years to sell their house
• They may sell their house for less than anticipated and therefore try and reduce their offer to me as they can no longer afford the original offer
• They could be a dreamer/timewaster, having already accepted an offer on their own house shows commitment

I think there is a world of difference from the buyer's perspective between "Your offer is rejected because you have not sold" and "Your offer is of interest and we would discuss further as and when you come forward with a buyer"

chopper78 wrote: »

Why? It would make the OP look desperate and if they did sell their house in 3-6 months and this house was still on the market, the OP would be in a weak position with regards to renegotiating that original offer. Hold your cards close to your chest rather than showing them straight away.

I don't agree about appearing desperate. The note through the door is specifically for when the agent does not appear to be passing the offer on - and the note should say as much. Comparing against the possible ways in which the agent handled the offer, the note through the door is not useful for the 'Your offer is of interest but ..." response.