House Sale fallen through useless Estate Agent-Ombudsman?????

jnielow

Dear All,

Yesterday our house sale fell through for the second time, we were inches from completion! (I could scream!!!!!!).

Well allow me to briefly explain my gripe,it is with the Estate Agent. We had the offer put to us which we accepted,our buyer was using the Estate Agents full services ie mortgage search.The Estate Agent told us around the middle of March everything ok Mortgage sorted,great we thought! My wife would phone them regularly for updates etc!

Then on sat 7th April we got a letter from our solicitor copying in a letter from our buyers soilcitors stating cant complete still awaiting for buyers mortgage offer!!!!!!!!.Well this was the first we knew about the matter, we could not contact anyone re this matter as it was the Easter break. We have done the math and established that the Estate Agent knew there was a problem wed 4th Apr/thurs 5th Apr and failed to let us know. My wife only found out the truth on 10th Apr that our buyer could not get Mortgage as he does not have the proper residency papers for this country!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So to summarise the Estate Agent, has not kept us informed,lied to us seemed to have had his interest closer than ours only updated us when we phoned. I have sent an email to the manager giving him the chance to respond (I am well aware that it is not the Estate Agents fault completely it is their client. But I am amazed that it got so far before this RESIDENCY ISSUE cropped up. How can someone who say they professional make such a screw up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Has anyone had a similar experience? I want to put it to the Estate Agents Ombudsman,so from my story would I have a good case? or is it not worth it?. I am not a high flyer, just work,pay my taxes keep my head down, but sometimes you get fed up of being kicked in the teeth!

Well thanks for reading(zzzzzzzzz!) lol any comments would greatly be accepted

cheers

Jason

leftieM

We had a similar story .We were told our buyer had a mortgage offer in place for another property that fell through so we thought they were a great bet and chose to sell to them even though another party was willing to pay more. This turned out to be a lie - the buyer couldn't get a mortgage for our house as they didn't have a stamp on their passport. We were going to complain about the second buyer's mortgage broker but didn't know exactly who lied. Our buyer strung us along hoping her passport would be returned before anyone was the wiser. Your buyer may have lied to the EA about the residency issue.

Mutton_Geoff

I have referred two cases to the OEA. Both were very clear cut, obvious evidence of agent malpractice etc. In both cases the OEA was spectacularly useless. Don't forget they are funded by the agents themselves yet claim to be impartial. That wasn't my experience.

(Search my posts if you want to read what my complaints were).

bukup

Not the estate agents fault - but the financial advisor. Agents get lied to too I'm afraid. Your solicitor should have faxed the otherside to ascertain the current position and got them to put in writing that they either had the offer or were waiting for it and if they were still waiting for it, then your solicitor should have asked them to chase it and get back to your solicitor to keep you informed.

brock-cruse

Hi we had someything similar in that a week before exchnage the first time buyer at the bottom of the chain did not have enough deposit money!! So all fell through because of that. Surely that should have been something determined at the start? I suppose he could just lie...meanwhile we lost our seller and buyer and have had to go back on the market..took 7 months for that chain to fall through so wasted a whole year not to mention a lot of money! How can this sort of thing happen??!!

Debt_Free_Chick

jnielow wrote: »

We have done the math and established that the Estate Agent knew there was a problem wed 4th Apr/thurs 5th Apr and failed to let us know.

Are you sure that they knew there was definitely a problem.

Or simply that they didn't know that there was a problem.

Sorry for being obtuse, but there is a difference and it affects what you do next.

Madjock

It's not the estate agent's job or business to be giving you information about your buyer's mortgage application. Nor is it the buyer's financial adviser's job. The only channel for this sort of information is via your solicitor in an ideal world.

The agent and the financial adviser have not necessarily done anything wrong. It is very difficult sometimes to know what the appropriate paperwork is, and some mortgage lenders are fussier than others. It may be that the buyer's application just needs to be placed with another lender.