Vendors who don't seem to want to sell their places!

cloo

Have you come across vendors who seem to be making it as hard as possible to buy their house?

We're trying to see a place where the owner is going to be away this week, but his sister was going to housesit, only she's at a conference all next weekend, and she's not around in the evenings either (not that we could do those really) and they won't give the agents keys!

jackyann

I think that it sometimes happens as a fall-out of divorce, or sometimes if someone is very cosy in a house that is part of a deceased person's estate and needs selling.

cloo

Hmm, could be divorce in this case, but not an estate as it looks like a family home at the mo.

billybear1

Yes, we had this with a separation.

House had been on for 7 months, took ages to get a viewing, got there and the vendor didn't remember we were turning up. Offered on the house and got told they would not budge on the price in any way at all...

So, we went and found something else, sometimes you have to walk away.

Loopy28

I always get put off my people who make it difficult to view, makes me think they aren't too motivated and could pull out any time.

I viewed a house that had been on the market for 9 months, I offered 2k under asking price and it was rejected. I didn't up my offer because in my opinion they were surely not too desperate to sell and it put me off.

billybear1

Loopy28 wrote: »

I viewed a house that had been on the market for 9 months, I offered 2k under asking price and it was rejected. I didn't up my offer because in my opinion they were surely not too desperate to sell and it put me off.

Exactly this - if they can't even let you view to sell the property, how will they be with appointing a solicitor, answering queries, actually moving out.

DRP

always seems to be an early warning sign when vendors won't give keys to their EA...

had several strange experiences with those types!

DRP

Quizzical_Squirrel wrote: »

I didn't give my estate agent the keys. I would never do that.

I recently sold and wanted to present my house properly and get a damn good price for it.

Me too - my EA did all the viewings and got a great price in quick smart time!

I'm not suggesting that keeping your keys is always a sign of something odd - but it is extremely rare in our area.

The key-possessive houses tended to be the weirdos with scary 40yo sons living upstairs in their 70s-decor homes. Or they were the ones where we had to revisit a few times (before giving up) as they weren't at home at prearranged appointment times.

The last ones that insisted on being present, were the ones that were hiding something. We drove past 30 minutes before the appointment and windows and doors were all full open in the midst of winter/rain - can you guess what they were hiding?!

cloo

We can wait for this house at least, though we'd like to see it if possible. Selling ours and the agent has the keys, which is as well as work full time... hoped an open day viewing would get it over and done with quickly but unlike when I sold my old place (which I had been letting) in May, it's all happening in dribs and drabs with people coming back for second views a week later and so on and it's a bit of a mare keeping the place tidy at short notice when we have two small kids! But we are at least trying to be accessible.

united4ever

billybear1 wrote: »

Yes, we had this with a separation.

House had been on for 7 months, took ages to get a viewing, got there and the vendor didn't remember we were turning up. Offered on the house and got told they would not budge on the price in any way at all...

So, we went and found something else, sometimes you have to walk away.

also came across a similar experience difficult to view and the lady made zero effort to tidy up when we did finally get a viewing....but apparently the husband (soon to be ex) was dead keen and open to offers but since she wouldn't agree it just sat on the market. Finally I hears the eventual vendor made the full asking price offer but was very clear that it was subject to survey since a bit of work needed doing. This really got things moving since the surveyor could then list all the faults. They agreed on 10 k under but without first offering full asking price they would never have got things moving.

honey_badger_3

we tried to buy from a couple who were about to be repossessed for not keeping up with mortgage repayments and we're about to divorce.

8 months of mayhem, the house was trashed during the course of the attempted sale, they went AWOL then tried to blame us for delays. Final straw came when they said that the bank wanted more money - which was a lie, so we pulled out.

House is now back on market after they got repossessed and we'be bought somewhere else.

Nightmare but it worked out for us somewhere else in the end