House exchange gazundering help urgent advice

eddddy

JackieHa wrote: »

.... I would presume that all they have had to pay for so far are the searches and perhaps an arrangement fee. Lots of solicitors now work on the basis that if the sale does not go through you don't pay for the work done, as obviously do the estate agents. So really they have probably not lost much.

You could be right... but if the sale falls through for this reason and the solicitor does not get paid, the solicitor will not be pleased and is unlikely to offer this investor a 'no sale, no fee' deal again.

Similarly, the EA (and the other EAs in the chain) will not trust this investor in future, because he/she wrecks deals at the last moment. So the EAs will show preference to other more reliable potential investors when new properties come on the market.

A serious (intelligent!) investor will not want to annoy good solicitors and EA s - they are important to their business.

If calling the investor's bluff doesn't work, another approach to consider is asking the EAs to bear some of the pain - e.g. they each pay £250 out their commission. This will help get the investor into the bad books of all the local EAs!

But remember that EAs are usually brazen hard-nosed business people - so you will need to be equally brazen and hard-nosed when you make this proposal. (Their starting point is likely to be that it is a ridiculous proposal - but in reality, they are probably already considering it!)

zzzLazyDaisy

Sorry I have not read the whole thread but I just wanted to say, please, 'do not, whatever you do, write a cheque to anyone'.

It does sometimes happen that someone in the chain reduces their offer (perhaps because of a lower valuation that expected (or as in this case, because they are playing the game) and it does sometimes happen that the sellers further up the chain adjust their prices accordingly so the respective sales can proceed as scheduled.

But that's the point - it has to be that the prices are adjusted, and that must be done via the solicitors doing the conveyancing. This is because the correct sale prices must be recorded. What the EA is proposing is illegal, and you would be a party to this.

What you should do is refer the Estate Agent's proposal to your solicitor and let them do their job.

silvercar

Ask the estate agent how much of their commission they are willing to contribute to ensure the chain completes?

zzzLazyDaisy

silvercar wrote: »

Ask the estate agent how much of their commission they are willing to contribute to ensure the chain completes?

LOL! Thanks, I almost spat coffee over my keyboard :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

dacouch

£1000 could it be the estate agent offered £1000 cashback to their customer if they used the EA's solicitor or financial adviser etc etc as some chains do?

Although an Estate Agent doing a dodgy deal does sound far fetched...

hcb42

definitely dont write anyone a cheque even for for £1!

Call their bluff, or whoever is most affected by the chain needs to deadline them instead.

zzzLazyDaisy

dacouch wrote: »

£1000 could it be the estate agent offered £1000 cashback to their customer if they used the EA's solicitor or financial adviser etc etc as some chains do?

I am sorry if this sounds pedantic - it isn't intended that way... but..

The Estate Agent's client is the seller. The question of whether the EA offers a discount or financial incentive in order to persuade the seller to use their services, is irrelevant to the current situation in which the buyer is insisting that the seller reduce the purchase price as a condition of exchange.

Or am I missing something?

JACKIEHA

Just to say I did refer it to the solicitor first and she obviously knew nothing about it. So then i rang the estate agent back and told him that he would need seller one to go through their solicitor, and if he wanted to discuss it further he should contact my solicitor rather than me. He rang my solicitor and she told him that she was unable to advise me in ths matter, as she had also told me. His number came up on my phone three further times on Friday and I ignored his calls. He didn't leave any message. My solicitor told me he ad rang her again and she had told him that she wanted to hear no more about it. He had asked her if I was going to pay.

cornishjanner

Something similar happened to me (top of chain suddenly raised her price) and all the estate agents in the chain chipped in x amount. It does happen.

Fire_Fox

Ask the estate agent to put the entire scheme into writing, including explaining why the vendors don't have £1K and the estate agents won't be stumping up either.