Estate agent 'forcing' us to use their solicitors

zzzLazyDaisy

You have the right to choose your own independent solicitor. The EA may use hard sell tactics to get you to use their 'approved' solicitors, but they cannot force you to use them. I doubt that the seller gives a flying fig which solicitors you use - I would put your offer in writing to the EA and ask that your letter be forwarded to the seller (the EA is obliged to notify the seller of all offers unless they previously have instructions not to - eg if offers are below a stated amount).

Personally I would always use a solicitor local to the area I am buying in. I would not consider using an on-line solicitor or conveyancer because I prefer to deal with a real person, know that I can have a face to face meeting if a problem arises.

Frankly, I think in your shoes I would probably make the right noises just to get the offer before the seller. But I would refuse to sign anything until the offer had been accepted and then I would go straight to my own solicitor, and explain what was happening - they would soon put the EA straight.

funkydrummer

Thanks for the tips everyone. I'll shoot an email to the EA and see if I can put a squeeze on him as suggested by zzzLazyDaisy above, and will keep you posted.

zzzLazyDaisy the vendor has already accepted our offer though, so not sure what my email will do except for putting things in writing. I do however have a SMS text message from the EA stating all of what I've mentioned above.

C_Mababejive

Typical bent EA. It really is about time that the whole EA business was overhauled as many of them are simply charlatans prostituting peoples home for their own ends and providing poor service for unjustifiably large fees.

zzzLazyDaisy

funkydrummer wrote: »

Thanks for the tips everyone. I'll shoot an email to the EA and see if I can put a squeeze on him as suggested by zzzLazyDaisy above, and will keep you posted.

zzzLazyDaisy the vendor has already accepted our offer though, so not sure what my email will do except for putting things in writing. I do however have a SMS text message from the EA stating all of what I've mentioned above.

Sorry, I missed the point that the vendor has already accepted your offer.

In that case, you don't need to have any more involvement with the EA. Just instruct your solicitor of choice and tell them that the EA is being obstructive and insisting on your using their preferred solicitors - your solicitor will soon put them right.

Edit - just to add - no the EA cannot just cross you out, only the vendor can withdraw acceptance of the offer, but frankly, given the EA's performance to date, I'd leave it to the solicitor to contact the sellers solicitors and get the ball rolling from their point of view. You need to be focussing on the lender and getting the surveyor in as soon as possible as this shows your commitment to proceeding quickly.

SecondTimeBuyer

funkydrummer wrote: »

Hello

We're looking to buy - had an offer accepted, but the agent told us that the vendor would only go ahead with the sale if we agreed to use the agent's recommended solicitors. They mentioned this is because the vendor wants a quick sale and would rather not have any problems during conveyancing.

Today I spoke to them and mentioned we'd rather choose our own solicitors, however the agent then told me that they had even rejected a higher offer from another buyer due to us already getting in first under the impression we would use their recommended solicitors.

I'm not impressed and I thought this was against the rules? Could someone please confirm this? Can the agent just go ahead and cross us out if we decline on using their recommended solicitors?

The agent has assured me that there's no conflict of interest if we use one of their solicitor firms, but I am worried if a problem arises that their solicitors would work for them and not for us.

However, this is quite a big and supposedly reputable real estate agency, so I'm not sure what to think.

Your advise is very well appreciated.

We had this when we bought a flat in London last year with one of the big estate agent chains (PM me for the name). We played them at their game and waited a week or 2 before sending over the details of the solicitor we intended on using. They can bully you all they want but at the end of the day they would much rather have a sale without their solicitors than to try and find a new buyer!

Mr_Moo_2

Not sure from thread contents if this is the case, but if the Vendor wants a quick sale and it's currently tenanted, best thing they could do is to lose the tenants. Are you buying to live there?

isisini

We also had this when buying in London! I thought it was outrageous. In our case we actually did have a family member doing the conveyancing for free and when we told the EA this not only was our offer not accepted, they completely stopped contacting us about new flats coming for sale.

I believe they termed it something like 'it would very advantageous to your offer if you were using our local solicitor as we know all about XXX properties in this area'.

I got as far as a few cursory google searches about where I could report them to but it didn't seem very straight forward.

funkydrummer

Mr_Moo wrote: »

Not sure from thread contents if this is the case, but if the Vendor wants a quick sale and it's currently tenanted, best thing they could do is to lose the tenants. Are you buying to live there?

Yes we're buying to live there.

If the vendor wants a quick sale then this hold up with the EA isn't really the best way to go about it.

Thanks for the tips. I haven't spoken to the EA yet but it's a good idea to go to our solicitors and ask them to get in touch with the appropriate parties.

Will keep you posted!

isisini -- if you feel you've been wronged then you can lodge a complaint with TPOS although they might ask you to speak to the EA's managers first.

kaya

funkydrummer wrote: »

Thanks for the advise G_M. How can I get in touch with the vendor? It's a third party that I've never met. I only met some people currently living at the flat. Is the agent allowed to give out the vendor's details to me?

Internet land registry search on the address will give you the owners details , only costs a few quid and takes a few mins , good luck with your new home

jmt

If you suspect the agent is being underhand, I would verbally agree to get their confirmation of sale. Once they post this info out to you, this will give you the vendors name and the solicitors that the vendor will be using. I would then contact the vendor directly along with their solicitors advising that you are now using a different solicitor and give them the correct details directly. At no time would I be in contact with the EA solicitors and once you have the info required, what are they going to do.

I really do hate underhand dealings by EA.........I think an old neighbour was conned out of £1000's by two local EA in my area