Had an offer accepted - how long before its taken off the market

grifferz

jibbyboo wrote: »

I believe they must tell anybody that enquires that the property is under offer, but until exchange, people can still view and bid etc, even if the property is showing STC.

The agents for the property we're in the process of buying refused to take the ad down until we had booked a survey as well.

It's been a month since the survey took place and to be honest we haven't seen a single other property on the market that we would want to view even if we were still looking. All of the properties we've viewed and liked since we started looking in December have gone within 2 weeks of being put online.

So they were right in assuming they had this power over us. All we would have achieved by playing hardball on that point would have been to sit there not viewing anything else for a month while someone else buys the house we liked.

fragmast3r

when we accepted an offer on our house (we sold this year), my estate agents. put a sold sign up and sstc on rightmove pictures within 48 hours, and cancelled the 3 viewings that were booked for later in the week as soon as i accepted the offer.

sounds like they are still touting for a better offer to me,

StaffieTerrier

When my offer was accepted on a house 4 weeks ago it was on the agents website as SSTC by the next morning. It was also on with another agent who removed it from their website later the same day.

jibbyboo

As suggested by a few posters, I think it largely depends whether the vendor is hoping for a better offer... My advice is to escalate everything as much as you can: knowing the situation I was in, my mortgage provider and my solicitor were very pro-active in doing this.

Calleja

I had the same problem - put an offer in, it was accepted, and even before I got a chance to ask them to remove it from the market, they said as a rule, they don't mark it as under offer until the survey is done. Initially I just accepted it, but after reading this forum decided it wasn't really fair as I was taking all the risk financially. So we discussed it and agreed that whilst it would still show for sale, viewings would stop. And as far as I am aware (I never tested them), they stopped viewing until I was happy with the survey and said I was instructing the solicitor.

Funnily enough, its now marked as sold even though we are probably still a good few weeks from exchange and its been removed from RM. So one extreme to the other really.

k0sh

**I am an Estate Agent**

I advise my clients NOT to take the property off the market until the potential buyer can demonstrate that they can buy the house.
They must also have also instructed surveyors to show their intent.

At the end of the day though, I will do what my client tells me (after I have advised them).

Having a house marked "Sold", and then put back to "For sale" undermines the house no end.

banwa

Hi guys, thanks for the replies. k0sh, your reply was particularly interesting, I think it would look sus for a house to have been sold and then come back on the market. It might imply that the sale fell through at survey stage so I get why you might want to be sure that a buyer is dead serious before it is progressed.

I rang the EA on Friday, to find out what is happening. The lady said that she had called the vendor the day before to remind him that she is waiting for his solicitors details, that she needs those to generate the sales memorandum.

She said that they can't mark the property as sold on their system until the SM has been issued, although in their office 'on the boards' it is marked as sold so they are not doing viewings. She did say 'they ARE going ahead with this', I think she could tell I was worried. And I believed them, and I trust the vendors. And I absolutely have made no commitment myself yet, I only have an AIP so I don't even know for definite that we can finance it. I will feel in a much stronger position when we have a mortgage offer and also if our sale goes through.

Appointment with the post office mortgage adviser on Thursday (they do the mortgage I want) so I might keep posting my updates on here if you don't mind

k0sh

The vendor is probably getting some quotes from sol's

banwa

It took about 8 days for the house to come off rightmove, but on a little trip last night to the village I discovered the for sale sign doesn't have a sold panel on it! Its been a month!


Grumble grumble

Moonraker71

I put an offer in on a house last Wednesday; I was the second person to view it. Made an offer on the Thursday morning, accepted Friday. Now it's Tuesday and it has just been marked as STTC today. They said they would only do it once they had my solicitor's details and a call from my broker to confirm I'm good for the mortgage (although I obviously haven't had a definitive offer yet).

What's annoying me is that it's on with two agents, and it's still being marketed with the other. On top of that, when I walked past the house at the weekend, after my offer was accepted, a For Sale sign had been erected by both agents, which wasn't even there when I viewed.

I'm not sure how to get the other agent to remove it from the market. So far I've been going through my own EA, asking them to get in touch with the vendor and tell him to tell the other agents to take it down, but nothing seems to be happening. I don't know the vendor's name or number to get in touch with him myself.

I assume I can't just contact the other agents myself and kick up a fuss? I doubt they'd listen to me for a minute.

I'm just worried the vendor is hedging his bets and waiting for a higher offer via the other agent. All very frustrating...