MSE News: Guest comment: Buyers and sellers are being ripped off by agents

Pincher

If the principle of building in the time waster overhead into the successful deals is correct, then it make every sense to charge buyers who actually buys for all the time wasting buyers too.

Former_MSE_Helen

Update: 25 November 2014

The House of Lords last night voted against amending the Consumer Rights Bill on this particular issue with 156 votes against the change and 113 votes in favour of it. However Stella Creasy says she will keep pushing for action to prevent estate agents and lettings agents ripping people off.

Stella also wants to hear your experiences and examples of fees charged. You can leave your comments in this forum thread.

Voyager2002

agrinnall wrote: »

I'm with KTF on this, I've never heard of a buyer being charged a fee by an EA, and I don't really see how it would be possible as the buyer has no contract with the EA. I cannot imagine it happening in Scotland, is this yet another bizarre English housing issue?

It is becoming increasingly common in London.

These problems do not affect Scotland: we do things differently here.

Voyager2002

cwcw wrote: »

Maybe if politicians are so concerned with the plight of buyers they should look closer to home and reassess the stamp duty tax, both in terms of thresholds and also the regressive mechanism that causes artificial pricing barriers and buyers of, say, a £260k house paying three times the tax of a £250k buyer.

What was supposed to be a tax on the wealthy has become yet another tax on virtually everyone and buyers of the average home are expected to pay £2,000+ up front. Those just above average are looking at £7,500+.

For those who advocate a mansion tax, be warned, in another decade or two when the thresholds remain unchanged, that 'mansion' will be a 3 bed semi. The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money to spend.

Check out what is happening now in Scotland, where stamp duty is being revised to provide something rather more fair.

The so-called 'mansion tax' is one way to respond to the injustice of the present situation, where the owners of high-value homes actually pay LESS Council Tax in proportion to the value of their homes than do the average and poorer householders.

Voyager2002

MSE_Helen wrote: »

Update: 25 November 2014

The House of Lords last night voted against amending the Consumer Rights Bill with 156 votes against the change and 113 votes in favour of it. However Stella Creasy says she will keep pushing for action to prevent estate agents and lettings agents ripping people off.

Stella also wants to hear your experiences and examples of fees charged. You can leave your comments in this forum thread.

Stella, take a good look at Scotland. Letting Agents are forbidden to charge fees to tenants, yet there is no shortage of them and they seem to do a roaring trade. At least there is clarity in that everyone knows that they are working for the landlord.

captainhindsight_2

Credit-Crunched wrote: »

The referral process for estate agents need look at promptly.

It is wrong that using their in house tied advisers, inflated conveyancing and extortionate household insurance makes you a more desirable client. Even mandatory meetings with the mortgage manager before they put forward your offer.

The mortgage manager is governed by the FCA.
The Solicitor by the SRA and FCA
The valuer RICS

The estate agent adheres to a voluntary code of conduct...

Surely this is not right, they can not be trusted to act with integrity and honest, so they need to be regulated.

This is why I only use chartered surveyors to do my Lettings, it is more expensive but at least they know what they are doing.

googler

Countrywide (and I mean in England-shire and Wales, since things are done differently in Scotland), how many have buyers actually been charged fees as well as sellers? And what proportion of the total market does this constitute?

Does our esteemed MP know?

cepheus

I see the Estate agency crowd have cornered this board, what a surprise.

It's long past time we stopped using traditional Estate agents altogether for standard properties. Fees exceeding £1,000 in total, can rarely be justified, sometimes only a fraction of that for what they do.

There's nothing inconsistent with Stella Creasy writing for MSE who has supported consumer rights across various campaigns. However allowing David Cameron on MSE whose party is mainly bankrolled from companies who rip off consumers was an outrage.

The strong Conservative Party connections to property companies is unhealthy for democracy.

the Tory annual winter fundraiser, which has been analysed by the Bureau, they were amongst 50 attendees with links to the property industry, representing almost 10% of the total guests listed on the seating plan. The large turn-out for the February “black and white party” follows calls by a Tory MP for a sector-wide show of support for the Conservatives to ensure Labour is defeated at the next general election, along with its proposals for a mansion tax and new restrictions on builders hoarding land.

cwcw

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Check out what is happening now in Scotland, where stamp duty is being revised to provide something rather more fair.

The so-called 'mansion tax' is one way to respond to the injustice of the present situation, where the owners of high-value homes actually pay LESS Council Tax in proportion to the value of their homes than do the average and poorer householders.

Since when was the use of council services proportionate to home value anyway? Council tax is banded already anyway, rightly or wrongly, so why introduce yet another new tax? If you think it will only affect millionaires then you're very naive. As I said, stamp duty started out for the wealthy too. All they have to do is not adjust the £2m threshold and within a generation we will all be paying it.

It's just tub thumping from the champagne socialists and God help us all if they get in next May, especially in a stitch up with the SNP. Talk about no mandate for England. No wonder we can't have our own parliament.

googler

cepheus wrote: »

I see the Estate agency crowd have cornered this board, what a surprise.

So in any discussion about Estate Agency, those in the industry are forbidden from comment?