Has my estate agent messed me over?

Liamt

Hi all

my current situation is that i am currently selling my house and moving. the date to move is hopefully 16th December.

my problem is that after the buyer got his homebuyer report it said that due to no electricity certificate the electrics were rated 3 (as in warning)

now, on a 50s/60s house i would not expect a certificate (the 60s house we are buying doesnt have one)

he called our estate agent who told him that he should get an electrician to check the electrics. and will not sign until the report comes back

we now cannot book a removal company as we have no definite date and it looks like we might miss the move before christmas, seriously messing up the whole chain.

so, has my estate agent actually done something wrong? surely im paying them £2000 to be MY agent.

do i have any legal recourse if the buyer finds something wrong and either backs out or demands a reduction? surely they are acting against me, its me paying their money?!?!

i have to admit i am so angry about this, my wife has had to organise for our dog to be picked up for the day and will not have electricity in the house all afternoon, which isnt ideal with a 4 month old baby

i have contacted the estate agent head office requesting the contact details for the branch manager but have had no reply after 3 days.

this is a national estate agent that is supposed to be award winning.

kingstreet

Was there no recommendation of an electrician's inspection and report in the survey?

cr1mson

Are you sure that the buyer is just looking to transfer the blame to the Estate Agent to keep things sweet with you? i.e. he was always planning to get an electrician's report but didn't want to admit it to you.

C

MissMotivation

No, your estate agent hasn't 'messed you over'

Your buyer won't sign unti he has had the electrics checked, which is standard practice and he has probably been advised to do this by his Solicitor.

Any house that has not been rewired since the 60's should have the electrics checked and I'm surprised that you are not getting the one your are buying checked over.

Liamt

no, our estate agent called us to tell us that SHE recommended him to get one. he wasnt going to.

my solicitor didnt recommend me to get it checked on our new house. older houses will never have them. it also says on our new house homebuyer that the heating system is rating 3 because they dont have a check certificate.

the homebuyer reports always level 3 flag things they cannot check to cover themselves. the guy doing the report even told us this.

i have taken a look at our new house. seems ok. copper core is copper core at the end of the day and i personally prefer multicore to single core to work with myself.

MissMotivation

Liamt wrote: »

no, our estate agent called us to tell us that SHE recommended him to get one. he wasnt going to.

THe only reason I can see for her recommending he get it checked is if he said he wouldn't proceed without a certificate......that way all she is doing is trying to keep the sale together.

my solicitor didnt recommend me to get it checked on our new house. older houses will never have them. it also says on our new house homebuyer that the heating system is rating 3 because they dont have a check certificate.

the homebuyer reports always level 3 flag things they cannot check to cover themselves. the guy doing the report even told us this.

i have taken a look at our new house. seems ok. copper core is copper core at the end of the day and i personally prefer multicore to single core to work with myself.

How come you don;t know who the Branch Manager is? Can't you just ring the branch and ask?

Liamt

MissMotivation wrote: »

How come you don;t know who the Branch Manager is? Can't you just ring the branch and ask?

it will be obvious why i am contacting them then and i dont want them to mess us up even more out of spite etc. surely it shouldnt take head office 3 days to contact me back?

i also want to write to him and not email him so it seemed the logical way to go. i hadnt thought of how useless they might be.

googler

Liamt wrote: »

it will be obvious why i am contacting them then and i dont want them to mess us up even more out of spite etc. surely it shouldnt take head office 3 days to contact me back?

i also want to write to him and not email him so it seemed the logical way to go. i hadnt thought of how useless they might be.

You're hardly going to stay on their bright side of the local branch by going over their head straight to HO.....

cr1mson

Are you sure that what MissMotivation says is not correct i.e. that they were going to pull out of the sale/ask for price reduction because of it but they have convinced him to get a report instead? I would be 100% sure of your facts before going in all guns blazing.

C

googler

Liamt wrote: »

my problem is that after the buyer got his homebuyer report it said that due to no electricity certificate the electrics were rated 3 (as in warning)

now, on a 50s/60s house i would not expect a certificate (the 60s house we are buying doesnt have one)

he called our estate agent who told him that he should get an electrician to check the electrics. and will not sign until the report comes back.........

OK. What did you expect to happen at this point?

Your agent assures the buyer that the electrics are fine?
Your agent tells the buyer that he doesn't need a report?
Your agent does....... what?

ILW

I cannot see the problem, the EA would not have suggested getting the electrics checked out of the blue. Chances are the buyer saw the survey result and said they were either going to pull out or reduce their offer due to "dangerous wiring", the EA would have rightly said "get them checked if you think it is a problem". If the house has 50 year old electrics it will need rewiring anyway.