Suspect Fake offers on a house? How can I check?

wecanhelpu

Generally, estate agents are lying, thieving b*atards and will use any trick to increasee their commission and so they can say prices are going up.

But as some posters have said, you didn't have to increase your offer.

(ps "shill-bidding" only applies to auctions. What you may have encountered is a "phantom buyer")

HokeyCokey_3

Hi judosteffer,

You wanted the house, you thought it was worth the extra (otherwise you wouldn't have paid the extra), so just be pleased with your decision.

I put an offer in for a property about 3 years ago and the EA refused to put the offer forward, because it was less than the asking price! I didn't raise my offer. Infact I now know that the EA could've got into serious trouble for that, but it's not worth the hassle.

As long as you are happy. What's an extra £1500 over the years (I pressume) you will spend in the house you obviously really want?

judosteffer

I know, and I did want the house- it just seems so unprofessional and doesnt seem right. Its annoying that some unscrupulous Estate agents can cause so much stress and bother, and yet be allowed to get away with it, as buyers dont seem to have any way of checking. As a regular "moneysaver", used to reading this website used to finding lots of ways of saving money, and often getting the law on your side, and with its "consumer revenge" ethos, I found it even more annoying!

olly300

judosteffer wrote: »

anyway, because I wanted the house I put in a revised offer of £195,000

There lies your problem.

If you just said I can't afford any more and walked away the EA may have come back to you. It's happened to two people I know.

judosteffer wrote: »

Is there a way to prove this?

No. Notice how EA's always conduct as much business as possible verbally.

judosteffer wrote: »

e.g. I thought all offers had to be submitted in writing

No they don't in England and Wales.

judosteffer wrote: »

could I take them to a small claims court? What would be my chances of winning?

It's your word against the EA's.

judosteffer wrote: »

If not, whats to stop ruthless estate agents from always "inventing" fake offers, just to push the price up?

There isn't.

Most EA's use other tactics to push up prices including telling the potential buyer the seller will not take your offer before disappearing. I also know of people who were told exactly what offer the seller would accept.

BTW for an EA the extra commission on £1,500 is not worth playing around for. They don't get paid if a sale doesn't go through.

murrayd_2

It's nigh on impossible to prove (at least in timely manner) whether the other offer was genuine, but what you can do is register your own offers at offerregister.co.uk, and that way you know the seller will get the offers without estate agency interference, and the site will also tell you when the seller has seen your offers.

It's entirely possible your offer didn't even get passed on by the estate agent (or was at least delayed) simply to increase pressure on you. It's a tried and trusted sharp practice favoured by some agents.

Hope this helps.

lynzpower

olly can I correct you, yes, all offers do need to be put to the vendor in writing by law.

When I was an EA, the system automatically generated these for both the potential buyer and the vendor. this is in the estate agency act. However, the OP is not able to see the letters from other potential buyers, only his own, which he sohuld be given in any case. Op cant see other peoples written offers or anything due to the DPA.

you say the EA is ruthless, but you have chosen your own behaviour. Personally, if I feel someone isnt playing fair i wind them up for a bit then walk away. i never again do business dealings with anyone i dont trust ( after the last time!) and wouldnt do so now.

in terms of whether this offer did exist, how can you be sure it didnt?? Yes, of course it happens, but likewise, when a property came on the market where I used to work Id say 6/10 if us EAs would have some form of offer by the end of the first day of marketing. It was an incredibly hungry adn driven agency in a rising market in london. I know when i had found a buyer for a property, all my colleagues would do thier utmost to damnit to find a buyer of thier own , and get an offer accepted over mine and pinch the deal off me and my client . Not nice to work in that dog eat dog environment, but at the end of the day, its designed to get best price for the vendor, and thats what EAs job is.

TJ27

So when you stick in your offer to the EA, the people at offerrerister.co.uk will e-mail or post your offer to the seller at the property address?

What's to stop you just doing that yourself? Or is the point that all offers can be viewed online and it's all transparent?

Tyders

wecanhelpu wrote: »

Generally, estate agents are lying, thieving b*atards and will use any trick to increasee their commission and so they can say prices are going up.

But as some posters have said, you didn't have to increase your offer.

(ps "shill-bidding" only applies to auctions. What you may have encountered is a "phantom buyer")

Just to defend us EA's here, Think about it - If I charge 1.5% to sell a house and i get a purchaser to increase the offer by £1500 that would net my company i work for a grand total of £22.50 extra of which I would personally get about £4 of. Even at £10k per increase its only £150. Now would you like to re-think your statement because surely a thieving b*atard as you put it would want more than this!!!!!

The only winner out of this is our Vendor - the person who we WORK for. we dont work for the purchaser but we all realise a current purchaser is a future vendor. A house is worth only what YOU want to pay for it - so in summary if you pay over the odds, well frankly its your fault - after all you do have 6-12 weeks of the transaction to pull out.

PS. I dont charge for advice at work or on here. I like to give advice and if it helps it helps and many of my colleagues do this too. Example: I was at a valuation last night until 7.30 helping someone work out their finances etc and I only charged them a fixed fee (under my normal rates) that was within their budget to help her and her 2 little kids out - would lying thieving B'tards do that?! I think not. Disclaimer - there are always the minority though

MORPH3US

Had exactly the same thing happen to me on a house I was trying to buy.... luckily we were already bidding over our budget when they tried to squeeze us for more, we knew we couldn't go any higher so just said "oh well, let the other person have it".

4 months later, they took the house off the market because they couldn't sell it hmmm

A few days later we found a smaller more modest house at a good amount less money which we can overpay the mortgage on to the maximum allowed...

I am quite smug that we got out when we did, but at the end of the day, its the estate agent taking all the risks, with someone else's property / money... if they sell at a higher price then they get more money, seller gets more but buyer loses out. If they don't sell at higher price, EA doesn't care, they lose nothing but seller does....

(most but not all) EA's = bloody idiots

I suppose the only way you can prove this happens is to get a job at the EA undercover......

M

lynzpower

wecanhelpu wrote: »

Nice speech mr. estate agent. You're a f*cking social worker now as well are you?
(well, I suppose you've got to do something with all your spare time)

I notice you didn't respond to my claim about "talking the market up"

absolutely no need. reported to abuse.