Offer Accepted - House Still Advertised

jwruk

It's been a while since I last moved house, and I can't remember the exact process I went through on my last purchase, but is it unusual for an EA to still be advertising a property for sale even though someone (me) has had an offer accepted at the asking price?

When I initially made the offer my own house wasn't on the market so the EA said that the offer was ok but they couldn't proceed as I wasn't in a position to go ahead with the purchase. A week later and I've accepted an offer on my house from an FTB, paper work for the sale/purchase has started to come through but the EA I'm buying through is still showing the house I'm going for as 'for sale' even though other properties they have on their web site are under offered, sale agreed or sold.

Ems*Honie

I would phone and ask that as you are now in a position to proceed the house be removed from sale and no viewings be booked on it. I think it quite normal for them to have left it on until now as you were not in a position to proceed.

Good luck!!

courtjester

This question comes up a lot on the forum.

Whilst it's common to ask for the vendor to take the property off the market after an offer is accepted and it's common for agents to do this even without their client's intructions, there is no legal obligation to do so and the only advantage is to the buyer, its totally one-sided.

It can be a matter of good faith between the parties and suggests a willingness to complete the deal, BUT until contracts are signed and exchanged, either side can pull out of the deal at any moment for no reason whatsoever with no liability to the other side. Generally, it is not appropriate to cease marketing to new buyers until late in the proceedings, i.e. after mortgage details have been confirmed in principle and a survey taken place.

As many vendors find to their cost, a lot of buyers decide not to proceed at the final stage and this can lead to the seller missing out on potential buyers whilst the property was being 'reserved' for that buyer...

papermoney

I think it's fairly common. We have an offer on a house and until our survey is done it is being advertised still. We have it in writing that as soon as the survey is booked they will crease advertising it.

cattie

jwruk wrote: »

When I initially made the offer my own house wasn't on the market so the EA said that the offer was ok but they couldn't proceed as I wasn't in a position to go ahead with the purchase. A week later and I've accepted an offer on my house from an FTB, paper work for the sale/purchase has started to come through but the EA I'm buying through is still showing the house I'm going for as 'for sale' even though other properties they have on their web site are under offered, sale agreed or sold.

Some ea's will continue to show a property on a website untill the survey has been carried out & thus know that the buyer is going to proceed with the sale, as courjester mentions.

The other thing is that the person who amends the website details may be on holiday if it's the ea's own website. If it's the Rightmove website, then that is notorious for being hopelessly behind in updating sold properties.

Occasionally an ea will delay marking a property as sold or under offer if there aren't many properties on the market as a kind of carrot. If they get enquiries about it they tell the person it's actually now u/offer but if they leave their details they will be kept informed of any properties matching their requirements.