Accepted Buyer's offer but still no Survey

DRP

Jaynorth wrote: »

Very frustrating, I spoke to one of the EA in their office on Tuesday and told him that I had lost out on 2 properties that I was interested in because there had been no movement at all from my buyer in 6 weeks and also pointed out that my buyer had not even asked for the property to be taken off the market yet! He said that he had informed him that he would not take it off the market until he had booked his survey but would find out what was going on and get back to me, now 2 days later still nothing...

I spoke to another agent in the office yesterday who said they had been rushed off their feet because the school holidays were now over so more people looking to view properties, I asked if they had any viewings for me as they are supposedly still marketing my property and she said no but I was still under offer so it's not so bad. I reminded her that it has been 6 weeks and the buyer had not even retained a solicitor yet, she offered to chase it up but I said someone else was already doing this.

But it seems obvious that they have stopped marketing my property so I think it may now be time to consider terminating the agreement with them and taking my business elsewhere or moving to a multi-agency contract because I have all but given up on looking for another property now and if I am not looking then I feel I should be focused on marketing my property and pushing for another sale. I am absolutely sick and tired of these EA's and their games, this is my 3rd EA since March and thankfully I made sure that I have a 7 day termination clause within the contract.

I would be a little careful about how you go about terminating your contract because, in their eyes, they have actually sold your property.

Jaynorth_2

DRP wrote: »

I would be a little careful about how you go about terminating your contract because, in their eyes, they have actually sold your property.

But how is it sold? because someone made a verbal offer? No memorandum has been issued because they do not have a solicitor. All I have is a phone call from an EA telling me that an offer has been made which I eventually accepted and now the people that made the offer were applying for a mortgage 1st through Santander, then through HSBC now through Santander again. Does this sound like a sold property to you?

DRP

Jaynorth wrote: »

But how is it sold? because someone made a verbal offer? No memorandum has been issued because they do not have a solicitor. All I have is a phone call from an EA telling me that an offer has been made which I eventually accepted and now the people that made the offer were applying for a mortgage 1st through Santander, then through HSBC now through Santander again. Does this sound like a sold property to you?

i guess it is irrelevant what i think. The EA may think it is sold and may think he deserves a fee, hence be careful.

Fortheloveofmoney

Something similar happened to us. We put our house on the market in mid April this year. The very first people who viewed made an offer but not until several weeks after they saw. They didn't ask for a second viewing either which seemed strange to me as by the time they'd offered it was about 5 weeks later. They also only viewed it for 5 minutes the first time.

Anyway I had my suspicions about how genuine they were so gave them 3 weeks to get a survey done. It this time they completely disappeared off the face of the earth and didn't return any calls or letters from the EA. So we decided to not bother with them and changed agent. As soon as we did this they came back again (through the new agent) and made another appointment to view under a different name. I recognised them and asked what happened. The story they gave didn't seem believable and I told them there and then that we couldn't sell to them as we would be liable for 2 lots of fees. They ignored this and offered again which we turned down.

People do seem to mess around and I wouldn't have waited 6 weeks like you have.

We've now done a part exchange for a new build and we applied for our mortgage on the Monday, had the survey done on Thursday and had the full offer by the Tuesday of that week. So just over a week for everything.

The builder put ours on the market for 10k less than it was on for orginally and it went under offer within 6 days. The couple had their survey done today so that only took a week. So your buyers so sound extremely slow.

Jaynorth_2

DRP wrote: »

i guess it is irrelevant what i think. The EA may think it is sold and may think he deserves a fee, hence be careful.

Well the agent has referred to my property as 'under offer' which I think is a long way from sold so it would be a completely desperate move for him to try this.

Something similar happened to us. We put our house on the market in mid April this year. The very first people who viewed made an offer but not until several weeks after they saw. They didn't ask for a second viewing either which seemed strange to me as by the time they'd offered it was about 5 weeks later. They also only viewed it for 5 minutes the first time.

Anyway I had my suspicions about how genuine they were so gave them 3 weeks to get a survey done. It this time they completely disappeared off the face of the earth and didn't return any calls or letters from the EA. So we decided to not bother with them and changed agent. As soon as we did this they came back again (through the new agent) and made another appointment to view under a different name. I recognised them and asked what happened. The story they gave didn't seem believable and I told them there and then that we couldn't sell to them as we would be liable for 2 lots of fees. They ignored this and offered again which we turned down.

People do seem to mess around and I wouldn't have waited 6 weeks like you have.

We've now done a part exchange for a new build and we applied for our mortgage on the Monday, had the survey done on Thursday and had the full offer by the Tuesday of that week. So just over a week for everything.

The builder put ours on the market for 10k less than it was on for orginally and it went under offer within 6 days. The couple had their survey done today so that only took a week. So your buyers so sound extremely slow.

Funny, my buyers only viewed once as well and only made an offer about 4 weeks after viewing. They seemed like genuine people but I only met them for about 5 minutes so....

I suppose I waited so long because they are FTB's so I thought it would take them about a week or 2 to get their act together but I think a line has to be drawn somewhere because if I were a buyer with an offer accepted 6 weeks ago after viewing a place only once, I would most likely still be looking at rightmove every now and again and I might go and see somewhere else just once and make a lower offer on that as well and see how that goes, maybe that's just me but I am guessing other people would do that too.

Fortheloveofmoney

Jaynorth wrote: »

Well the agent has referred to my property as 'under offer' which I think is a long way from sold so it would be a completely desperate move for him to try this.

Funny, my buyers only viewed once as well and only made an offer about 4 weeks after viewing. They seemed like genuine people but I only met them for about 5 minutes so....

I suppose I waited so long because they are FTB's so I thought it would take them about a week or 2 to get their act together but I think a line has to be drawn somewhere because if I were a buyer with an offer accepted 6 weeks ago after viewing a place only once, I would most likely still be looking at rightmove every now and again and I might go and see somewhere else just once and make a lower offer on that as well and see how that goes, maybe that's just me but I am guessing other people would do that too.

Alarm bells are ringing so loudly here! Tell the agent that you're now rejecting the offer and want to actively market again.

With regards to agents fees, check your contract. The contract we had with the original agent stated that their fee would be payable upon completion so we wouldn't have to pay if it didn't work out.

Yorkie1

There's a lot of aerated views on here, given current testimonies from people currently buying through Santander that 6 weeks or more has been their experience of delay before survey.

The lack of viewers doesn't mean that the EA isn't marketing the property; it could just mean that the property has been on rightmove for long enough that there are no new viewers interested in it - new properties on the market are more interesting to them.

The FTBs may well have been advised by someone not to get their solicitor expenses incurred until they knew they had passed the affordability checks and the house passed the valuation.

None of this indicates that the FTB should be rejected. The EA has found what is, at present, a proceedable buyer (or at least one which has not withdrawn / been refused a mortgage) and therefore is likely to be entitled to their fee.

I agree with the suggestions that your EA should be chasing the buyers for an update, and asking for a sign of commitment to the process by at least having a solicitor nominated, but to talk of chucking the buyers completely is unnecessary. It's not as if the OP is fighting off other interested parties, is it?

Fortheloveofmoney

You don't need to incur solicitors fees until they are instructed and start doing stuff. You can still provide the name of the solicitor to the EA. The mortgage company will want to know who it is too as they send a copy of the mortgage offer to them.

6 weeks+ without doing any of that seems like an extremely long time without some sort of commitment to the process.

Jaynorth_2

Yorkie1 wrote: »

There's a lot of aerated views on here, given current testimonies from people currently buying through Santander that 6 weeks or more has been their experience of delay before survey.

The lack of viewers doesn't mean that the EA isn't marketing the property; it could just mean that the property has been on rightmove for long enough that there are no new viewers interested in it - new properties on the market are more interesting to them.

The FTBs may well have been advised by someone not to get their solicitor expenses incurred until they knew they had passed the affordability checks and the house passed the valuation.

None of this indicates that the FTB should be rejected. The EA has found what is, at present, a proceedable buyer (or at least one which has not withdrawn / been refused a mortgage) and therefore is likely to be entitled to their fee.

I agree with the suggestions that your EA should be chasing the buyers for an update, and asking for a sign of commitment to the process by at least having a solicitor nominated, but to talk of chucking the buyers completely is unnecessary. It's not as if the OP is fighting off other interested parties, is it?

This is true which is why I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and wait but I think I will take the suggested approach and say that unless the buyers retain a solicitor within the next week, I will re-market my property elsewhere. I think this is fair.

My contract with the EA is strictly on a no sale no fee basis which I believe means that even if there is an offer to buy, unless the sale actually goes through to exchange of contracts, no fee is due.

Yorkie1

DVS and others have suggested a mystery buyer. Why don't you do this before making any drastic or potentially complicated decisions to move EA?

As far as you are aware, your property is still being actively marketed and therefore moving agents may do little. The fact that the buyers are being slow, is absolutely nothing to do with the fact that nobody else seems to want to view your property.