Rubbish estate agents leading to lost money - am I eligible to make a claim?

cjh302

Hi MoneySaving people!

I had a really rubbish time back in February/March, trying to buy a house. A friend recently said that I should take the agents to a small claims court, and I was wondering if this is actually possible, and if so, what the procedure is...

What happened:

* November: I made a lowish offer, emphasising that although it was low, I was a first time buyer, and could wait 'til June to move. They said no. I made a higher offer, making it clear that with this amount of money, I wanted to be in there fairly quickly. They said yes.
* At the start of January (2nd!), I visited the house to follow up on some items from the survey. I happened to mention the timing aspect to the sellers, who were astonished that I wanted to be in there before the summer; the estate agent had utterly failed to tell them about this aspect. They agreed to aim for a moving date of 19th February, during the local half term. (Before I'd made my offer, they'd mentioned that, for the sake of the sale, they'd happily go and sleep in the spare room at the house of one of their parents. I figured worst case, this would happen.)
* The estate agent told me the vendors had found an ideal place to rent, and had arranged to move into it at the end of February
* We didn't make 19th Feb, but I was told all was moving along and completion was just round the corner...
* I was out of the country on holiday from 23rd February - 2nd March. I'd been renting in a student house, and moved out just before the holiday; originally, I'd been going to move into the place I was buying, but this didn't happen. I crashed at my fiance's place, as I'd already arranged to sub-let my room (landlord-approved!) from 1st March - 1st July, when my contract ended.
* The estate agent assured me that it was all going to plan, and several times told me that the vendors were now (from end of Feb) paying both rent and a mortgage, and as such were in a real hurry to complete.
* On 27th March, I was told by a different rep at the estate agents that yes, we were ready to exchange, we just had to wait on the sellers' purchase... yes, purchase. No, they hadn't moved out, no, they weren't renting elsewhere. Yes, I had been told an absolute pack of lies (and, what with letting out my room, was homeless). Meanwhile, the estate agent that had told me the pack of lies was "no longer with them", and had moved on.

After this, I just pulled out of the purchase. I could have held on and got the place some number of weeks later, but having been lied to by everyone about everything, I just couldn't trust anything else I was being told. I wasn't interested.

As a result of all this, from 2nd March - 22nd April, I had no choice but share with my fiance his one room (with only a single bed), in a shared student house, with that room being absolutely packed full of boxes of my stuff. (Luckily, after this, another room in the house became free, so at least we now have the luxury of a room each!)

I lost the money spent on survey and searches, probably in the region of £700 - £900, and of course, was stuck in a tiny, crammed room for nearly two months.

My pal reckons that I could take the estate agent (Connells, by the way: NEVER USE THEM!) to a small claims court. Does this sound feasible? If so, how do I do it?

Sorry for the length of the above, and thank you for reading
Clare

thesaint

Forget about it.

This is the English system.

dmg24

Where was your solicitor in all of this?

maninthestreet

Clare,

No contract exchange had taken place, no claim would succeed, as no breach of contract occurred.

cjh302

Good question about the solicitor, dmg. Basically, same position as me, knowledge-wise; they were also told the sellers were renting. As the sellers took months to send in their bits of information, my solicitors weren't able to move things along 'til about February, as I recall. Was that what you were wanting to know?

I think you may be right, Saint.

cjh302

Man in the Street - that makes sense, sadly! So I guess I can't do anything about the fact that Connells were just lying to me throughout?

House buying is a pain!

pinkshoes

cjh302 wrote: »

Man in the Street - that makes sense, sadly! So I guess I can't do anything about the fact that Connells were just lying to me throughout?

House buying is a pain!

lol I think you'll find it's not just Connells that tell you porkies to keep you hanging in there!! Our EA, knowing we had to be out our rented accomodation on a certain date, told us the new build would be easily completed before that date! Well, it was only 2 months late, and he later denied saying anything of the sort, but lucky for us we could keep our rented accomodation for longer and we hung on til it was all finished as we loved the flat.

Is there no possibility you can still go through with buying this house? you've already spent the money on survey etc... so you obviously like it. Don't give up just because an EA has messed you around. MOST will mess you around :eek: you just have to not take anythign they say for granted!

benood

Welcome to buying houses in England. Big purchases and sales of any type are always fraught with tension and uncertainty - my advice would be stick with it, once you're moved in you will soon forget about all the hassle and have the home you wanted, albeit with more effort than buying a packet of jaffa cakes at Tesco.

cjh302

Thanks for all the advice, guys! I thought that this was probably going to be the case, but thought I'd check just in case

There's a happy ending to the story (lost money and cramped accommodation aside!), in that in April my fiance and I found a much nicer house, in a nicer area (admittedly for more money, but still!). It has a lovely garden, so I'm looking forward to learning how to do that big old 'gardening' thing

Cheers again guys, and good luck with any buying and selling that you're doing!

prudryden

Good luck. Good thing you didn't listen to your friend - estate agents rarely lose in court for some reason. Evidently, most solicitors are told when they first start up in business to never take on an estate agent.