William H Brown - dispute please help!

Owl_87

Hi - was hoping for some advice. We recently bought a house through William H Brown and have an ongoing dispute.

We expressed an interest in the house as first time buyers and were offered an appointment with William H Browns' in-branch mortgage advisor, who suggested we use her as mortgage broker and let her arrange a solicitor for conveyancing, along with trying to sell us a whole host of other policies; life insurance, critical illness, income protection etc. I wasn't impressed by the service she was offering and made arrangements with another mortgage broker and solicitor.

We made an offer on the house, the mortgage advisor called to say that the vendors had accepted our offer, but on the condition we use the EA's mortgage brokers and solicitors. She said this was because the vendors were worried about us being FTB's and they wanted the security of keeping everything 'under one roof.' She said otherwise we would have to raise our offer by £1000. I wasn't keen as their solicitors were £500 more expensive than mine and they were offering a worse rate on the mortgage. However, they made it clear there were other offers on the table and feeling under pressure I agreed.

14 weeks after making the mortgage application the broker was making no progress in getting us a mortgage offer despite us providing the paperwork requested. I contacted the vendors directly and asked if they'd mind us applying for a mortgage through my broker. It then came to light that it had never been a condition that I use William H Browns' services. I cancelled the mortgage application and had a second mortgage arranged in a fortnight.

I wrote to sequence home to complain and requested they refund the fees on the first mortgage (£149) and the difference in cost between my solicitors and the EA's (around £500). I received a reply today offering me the fees on the mortgage, nothing towards legal fees but £200 for my inconvenience provided I signed a document to say this would settle my complaint finally.

Was wondering what peoples thoughts are - is £350 a reasonable outcome or should I hold out for the full £650? I don't particularly want to profit out of this but don't think I should end up out of pocket!

Sorry for such a long first post, any thought would be much appreciated!

ValHaller

Do you have good evidence of what happened? Would your mortgage broker and the vendor support you with statements?

Basically what has happened here is as I understand it illegal - the agent threatened to discriminate against you for not using his services.

Owl_87

The reply to our offer was a phone call so no hard evidence, it was on hands free and there were 2 other people in the car at the time. The vendors did say they'd be willing to corroborate if necessary

ValHaller

A useful post by SeniorPaperMonitor https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/62896771#Comment_62896771

To me it looks like they have broken the law. I would decline their offer and think about taking it further by other means.

But then, I would have got this stopped off much further - if I felt it necessary to accede to the stipulation, I would have written to the solicitor to instruct and stated that they were only instructed on the insistence of Brown's that it was a condition of the deal. You might find that the solicitor would be unhappy.

The £200 is probably the kickback from the solicitor to Brown's. I think you should go ahead and take the opportunity to see Brown's worse off by £300 for having pulled this stunt.

kingstreet

the vendors had accepted our offer, but on the condition we use the EA's mortgage brokers and solicitors

I think in all future cases, we are going to have to suggest the agent be asked for this in writing.

Somehow, we have to find a way of exposing this for the dirty trick that it is. If the agent puts it in writing, we have something to back up a formal complaint.

If they don't...!

tBagpuss_2

Did you actually pay their solicitor the full amount? If not, how much did you actually pay them?

I don't think you should be left out of pocket. So fees + actual amount paid to the EAs solicitor + £200 for inconvenience sounds reasonable to me.

harrys_dad

Yet more sharp practice by EAs, risking upsetting a prospective buyer to push their own services, rather than act in the interests of the vendor as they should be doing.

It surprises me that anyone believes anything that any EA says without getting it in writing.

ValHaller

kingstreet wrote: »

I think in all future cases, we are going to have to suggest the agent be asked for this in writing.

Somehow, we have to find a way of exposing this for the dirty trick that it is. If the agent puts it in writing, we have something to back up a formal complaint.

If they don't...!

I agree. Of course the agent will not put it in writing, but the buyer can. I suggest this:

Once the threat is made, buyer should continue to negotiate and accede verbally to the threat until a deal is reached. At which point, instruct the solicitor and the mortgage broker with this letter

Dear William H Brown

In the matter of our purchase of <property>, we note that you advise that the vendor insists that we use the solicitor and mortgage services provided by yourselves. Solely on the strength of your warranty that this is indeed the case, we would formally ask you to engage those services on our behalf. Should this not be the case, we would require you to advise us without delay.

Yours etc.

I doubt that they would want to continue with the bluff and if they did, you could demand that the recommended solicitor write to the vendors solicitor and ask for confirmation that the vendor had asked for this. If nothing else, the solicitor would probably disinstruct themselves.

As an aside, there seems to be a number of vendors who really don't want contact of any sort with the buyer. It is for just this kind of situation that you do need contact.. The agent is not acting in the seller's interests as he is required to do.

edit: wrong word - thanks to comeandgo for pointing out.

comeandgo

Valhaller, is the first sentence in your letter correct? There seems to be purchaser mentioned twice?

Okydoky25

No advise only to say after being shafted myself by William H Brown and the in house Mortgage broker I would never go near them again.

wary

Radio 4 Moneybox did a feature on this sharp practice by estate agents a couple of months ago:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b037dxyw

Not sure if the podcast is still available.