EA asking for all kinds of info

purplestar133

I have just posted a thread but this is another topic...

I placed an offer for a house and was asked if I had an agreement in principle in place, with who, what percentage my deposit was...I thought that was reasonable, they want to know that I can get a mortgage. I told her I had been talking to a mortgage advisor. But then I was told that someone else had offered higher.

She said I would receive a call from Just Mortgages to 'financially qualify' my offer. Why do that when someone has bid higher? I did mention I might be able to offer more but didn't do it then.

I ignored the call when it came as I didn't like the idea of giving all my info to this other company. I have been talking to a mortgage advisor, I know I can get a mortgage. I felt that this 'Just Mortgages' were just going to try and sell me a mortgage.

Is it normal for you to have to be 'financially qualified' before you can even put an offer in? Do you have to have an AIP in place to put an offer in? My mortgage adviser says I will have no problem getting a mortgage - but I haven't got an AIP yet as I'm worried about it leaving a mark on my credit history...then it might expire before I find the right house, so I'd have to get another, leaving another credit check marker.

Further to this I am now in the position where I have bid the same as someone else and have to make my best offer by tomorrow at 6pm along with a long list of info. I have to provide all my proof of deposits etc, AIP info, date of completion (that's up to them isn't it?!), conditions of offer, name and address of solicitor (I haven't got a solicitor yet as I haven't had an offer accepted yet).

I'm getting really confused with what I need to do and when. All I want to do is put an offer in and see if they accept it, if they do, I will get the ball rolling ASAP. Do they really have to have all this info from me at this stage? I will probably have loads of offers refused before I get accepted so will they need this info every time?

Really sorry for the long question!

Hoploz

You don't HAVE to give them any info at all. But the seller will want to know whether one potential buyer is more likely to carry through more easily or quicker than another, especially if two offers are the same amount.

I would get the AIP done tomorrow if it were me, after all you do intend buying this house don't you? And put your offer in with as much supporting info as you can, without necessarily giving specifics of how much deposit or mortgage or savings etc you have in actual pounds. The agent might like to have a conversation with your broker to verify what you've said is true, but they won't talk actual numbers. That's personal & private information.
That way there's no need to give chapter and verse to their in-house detective ... I mean broker.

moneyistooshorttomention

I don't quite understand why you don't have a solicitor yet.

There's no harm in working out which solicitors you might use and getting quotes for the work involved from a couple of them and then deciding which one you will use when you buy a house (this house/any house) and then you just turn round and say "I've decided Mr X will be my firm of solicitors".

It shows you don't have to spend time faffing around working out which firm you intend to use in the first place. It also gives the EA (and hence buyer) an idea of how efficient your solicitors are likely to be. When I sold my starter house recently, my EA certainly wanted to know which firm my buyer would be using. This was because they knew which firms would be particularly efficient and which would be particularly inefficient and were hoping my buyer had chosen one of the ones they knew to be efficient.

In the event, they had never heard of the firm my buyer chose either way and rang me to ask if I knew what that firm were like (and I didn't either). So we both had to google them and see what sort of reviews they had...:rotfl:

70sthrowback

I have just sold my house and the reason I chose one buyer over another was the fact that only one had their AIP in place. The other didnt, although had confirmed that they could afford it, but I had no visible proof of this.

Otherwise their offers and positions were very similar, so the difference was the AIP. Hence I accepted the offer from the one who had sent in their AIP to the EA.

DpchMd

We really, really struggled with this during our lengthy search for a new home.

I was well prepared for pushy agents to try to sell me every kind of service possible, and during the early days of our search I firmly refused every request.

However, you have to remember that estate agents massively influence the vendor when it comes to selecting the buyer. When I sold my house, there were several offers at a similar price-range, and I ended up selecting a buyer that the EA told me was the most enthusiastic about the property. Funnily enough, it also transpired that this buyer agreed to use their in-house mortgage broker and conveyancer. Were they really the most enthusiastic, or did the EA want us to pick this buyer because their commissions would be higher?

My advice would be to bite your tongue, be overly nice and give them everything they ask for. If you have found your dream home indicate that you would be interested in receiving a quote from their conveyancer. Volunteer that you would like the estate agent to recommend any other services that would help the transaction go smoothly.

If you are not cooperative, the EA will tell the vendor that they have concerns about you completing on the purchase. The vendor has no other information other than what they EA tells them, so they will not accept your offer.

purplestar133

Thanks for all your replies.


I am going to get an AIP in place today, and I have all my documentation ready to go to prove my finances. It's annoying that what the EA have asked me to send shows more money than will be in my deposit as it shows my whole balance across a lot of different accounts and the whole balance of my father in law who is giving us only part of it towards deposit. It's also annoying that I have to give them the bank details of a load of my accounts - I bet they don't store it securely.


Hoploz, I don't know how to give them supporting info without including numbers unless I gave it to my solicitor and had them verify it with the EA.


Which brings me to the solicitors... I will do that moneyistooshorttomention. I thought I would need to employ a solicitor and be on their books in case the EA contacted the solicitor and I was thinking that might involve paying them at a stage before the offer has even been accepted.


I think that is what I am struggling with in this whole process - what order to do things in and at what stage to do it.


As it happens I have received a legal services quote from the EA so I hope that will work in my favour!


I am learning a lot about EAs through this process and how important it is to keep them sweet, so, even if we don't get this house, I will know better what to do next time. Thanks for all your advice!

orionmoo

Is the estate agent Haart by any chance? We had them hassle us to death's door to see their "Just Mortgages" advisor. She was useless, she just typed our salaries and requested mortgage term into an application and when it splurted out a load of results, she pointed to the one at the top of the list, with the lowest fixed term rate for 2 years, and said "I recommend you go with this one".

No digging deeper into what the SVR would be after, whether there's cashback on offer, the cost of the valuation/survey through them etc. Then she said her fees would be "about £500", we checked the T&C's after and it said a minimum of £500, up to 1% of the mortgage value!

What they did I could (and did) do myself using MSE mortgage finder/comparison tool. In the end I just went direct to my bank who gave me an offer and a rate and cashback amount I was very happy with.

AndyT678

purplestar133 wrote: »

It's annoying that what the EA have asked me to send shows more money than will be in my deposit as it shows my whole balance across a lot of different accounts and the whole balance of my father in law who is giving us only part of it towards deposit. It's also annoying that I have to give them the bank details of a load of my accounts - I bet they don't store it securely.

1. Don't show them more of the accounts than you need to to arrive at a reasonable approximation of your deposit.

2. Photocopy your statement and black out any account numbers / sort codes and any transactions that you don't want them to see. All they really need to be able to see on there is your name and the closing balance. You may need to scan or photocopy the photocopy to make it totally illegible.

Then all they know is what you've already told them and there's nothing particularly sensitive left.

Hoploz

You don't pay the solicitor anything until you are ready to start proceedings. You could get quotes from any and say you're going to use a particular one. You can still change your mind once it gets going.
Last time my EA jumped the gun. I told him I would probably use the same solicitor I'd used previously but had not yet contacted them, and i would confirm the next day. He decided to send the memorandums round on that day based on that info. Then the next day when I managed to actually speak to them I found their fees had rocketed so I had to tell him he had to re-do it with the correct solicitor.

westv

70sthrowback wrote: »

I have just sold my house and the reason I chose one buyer over another was the fact that only one had their AIP in place. The other didnt, although had confirmed that they could afford it, but I had no visible proof of this.

Otherwise their offers and positions were very similar, so the difference was the AIP. Hence I accepted the offer from the one who had sent in their AIP to the EA.

Seeing as an AIP isn't a guarantee and it only last 3 months it doesn't surprise me that not everybody gets one. We've been looking for 4 1/2 months now since first seeing a mortgage advisor and were advised by them not to get an AIP.

purplestar133

westv wrote: »

Seeing as an AIP isn't a guarantee and it only last 3 months it doesn't surprise me that not everybody gets one. We've been looking for 4 1/2 months now since first seeing a mortgage advisor and were advised by them not to get an AIP.

I was told an AIP only lasts 30 days!