Foul Play/case for legal action

lincroft1710

What none of us can understand is that knowing TW would offer you £140K and knowing you had had 2 viewings by an interested buyer, why you didn't contact EA and instruct them to inform IB that you would accept £140K or say £145K to start negotiations.

EA passing your letter to them on to TW suggests they are either passing the buck or don't believe they're in the wrong.

I wouldn't be surprised if a copy letter dated May appears in EA's file informing you that your contract has ended, unfortunately "the top copy must have got lost in the post".

badaz52

We had the two viewings and contacted the EA loads of times asking if she had made an offer and they kept telling us they couldn't get hold of her and nothing had happened. We asked the EA if we should reduce the price to bring in more interest they said no, we really wanted to move so went ahead with the PX for that buyer to them come back before completion and say she wanted it for £140k obviously by this time TW were acting on our behalf so neither the EA or TW told us that they had a definite buyer, had they done so we would have been quite within our rights to opt out of the PX and go for it on our own and negotiate on the price of the new build. Bearing in mind she had already viewed it twice and was an interested party way before TW came into the picture.

If you think about it, it was in TW's best interests to plod on with a supposed PX so we wouldn't negotiate on price, I mean would you rather lose £1400 in estate agents fees or let a customer negotiate about £17,000 off the asking price? I think they mislead us and I'm sure they twisted the PX agreement just so we couldn't negotiate with them.

I feel really sickened by this, and like I said the PX agreement I signed is not what took place at all. They did not PX.

Surely them lining up a buyer before completion (while we still owned it) and presumably? taking a deposit off the lady as a commitment they voided their own PX agreement?

We would have sold the house and not have to PX if A) The EA had valued the house correctly in the first place and not let us reduce the price sufficiently when nothing was happening.

We asked TW through the process for help towards solicitors fees, moving costs, money off extras and the response all the way along the line was "NO, THIS IS A PX WE ARE DOING YOU A FAVOUR, YOU HAVE ZERO NEGOTIATION" How did they do us a favour based on what actually happened? absolute jokers.

lincroft1710

Firstly there's no guarantee TW would have negotiated £17K off the price. It is in there interests to maximise their profit on any deal so they can negotiate as high or as low as they want depending on how they value a particular plot or need more cashflow. If you thought that when you read the PX agreement it was too restrictive then you shouldn't have signed. It's too late to complain after the event.

Asking EA if buyer was still interested isn't the same as you actually instructing EA to approach the buyer with the suggested £140K offer. I don't think TW were acting or were supposed to be acting on your behalf.

Part Exchange means taking in an item as a "deposit" against the value of an item it is intended to sell. The chronological order of events was they bought your old house, they sold you your new house, they then sold on your old house, That spells Part Exchange, the fact that there was less than 24 hrs between buying your house and selling it is irrelevant. They kept to their part of the agreement by buying and selling your old house at the old prices.

JQ.

What did you expect TW to do when they said they would start marketing the property immediately? Did you genuinely believe they would market the property but not enter into negotiations with anyone until they'd bought it? That's not how the real world works I'm afraid. All business revolves around buying and selling of product, in many many businesses people sell things they don't yet own - this also happens in property and you signed an agreement stating your consent that they could do this.

You have negotiated a poor deal because you wanted security - the security of a confirmed sale price and a confirmed sale date. TW are not your friend, they are not your financial adviser, they are selling you something and owe you no duty of care with regard to the price. It's up to you to negotiate a good deal, not for them to offer it to you. They did px the house as they bought it off you for £140,000, which is what both parties agreed to.

I can symapthise, you are unhappy as you feel you've overpaid for your house. However, that is the nature of these schemes. Do you think the developers offer these schemes out of the kindness of their hearts? If you'd asked me whether px'ing is a good idea before you did it I'd have said no, it's a terrible idea as it always costs you money - same as px'ing a car at a dealer rather than doing a private sale. There is always a cost to these things.

However, being able to sue somebody because you negotiate a bad deal, good luck with that one.

badaz52

Negotiate a bad deal? I didn't negotiate at all because I was told I couldn't! They had every right to enter into negotiations prior to them owning it but as we were the still "legal" owners was it not still our concern before we exchanged they deliberately hid a vital detail to benefit themselves, a detail which was also hidden by the EA. I'd call that a con myself.

sonastin

badaz52 wrote: »

Negotiate a bad deal? I didn't negotiate at all because I was told I couldn't! They had every right to enter into negotiations prior to them owning it but as we were the still "legal" owners was it not still our concern before we exchanged they deliberately hid a vital detail to benefit themselves, a detail which was also hidden by the EA. I'd call that a con myself.

There is a difference between hiding the detail and not showing it to you. After the PX deal, did you at any stage ask if there was a potential buyer lined up? If they lied about it, I'd agree it is a con. If you didn't ask and they didn't tell, I wouldn't call it a con.

JQ.

badaz52 wrote: »

Negotiate a bad deal? I didn't negotiate at all because I was told I couldn't!

That is a negotiation! They told you a price and you accepted it. An alternative response would have been "I'll offer £183,000 and not a penny more, if you don't like it I'll go elsewhere."

badaz52 wrote: »

They had every right to enter into negotiations prior to them owning it but as we were the still "legal" owners was it not still our concern before we exchanged they deliberately hid a vital detail to benefit themselves, a detail which was also hidden by the EA. I'd call that a con myself.

No, it's not a con, you can try and sell my house if you want. But you'll need to agree a price with me first or offer me a % of the sale proceeds because you won't be able to sell it without me selling it to you first and I'll have to be happy with that price.

You had already agreed to sell it at a fixed price, you had given them consent to market it and they did just that. They then bought it off you at the agreed price on the agreed date. It was not your right to be party to any negotiations just because you were the legal owner. If they'd agreed to sell it at £120,000 would you have refused to complete or offered them £20k from your savings to make up the shortfall?

badaz52

We asked the EA a few times As we thought they may still keep us informed they just said no not got any info

sonastin

badaz52 wrote: »

We asked the EA a few times As we thought they may still keep us informed they just said no not got any info

How close to completion did you ask? If it was in the last week, I agree that there is something amiss. If you stopped asking as you got closer to completing on your own house, they may have been telling the truth. This buyer might have come through late on in the process by which time you'd stopped asking.

I think the OP is right in that not everything in this transaction happened entirely as it should from the information supplied but I think that the mistakes and misunderstandings are geniune; I don't think there is any sort of conspiracy to deceive or defraud. I also think the OP is equally culpable in that there is a lot more that he could have done to help himself during the sale process. Hindsight can be a painful thing.

badaz52

I'm not sure when this happened exactly but at some stage my partner got a call from the EA saying mrs xxxx wants to know if your leaving your phone connected. This was very late possibly on or just after exchange of contracts not sure of the exact date we were confused but it was too late to do anything about it. Px or no px they still left us waiting outside the new property till the money went through!