How involved is the estate agent after offer is accepted?

Rosetinted

Hi all,

I'm a first-time buyer and have found a property I'm interest in purchasing, but the utter incompetence of the estate agent is a source of constant hassle and I'm wondering how much they will impact proceedings if I ended up buying it.

They're totally disorganised (incorrect details on the listing, don't know room sizes, don't know square footage, don't have EPC available), have never once returned a phone call (I had to call six times to arrange a viewing), are usually unavailable and have an air of arrogant disinterest in the whole thing. I've not heard from them since Thursday, when I put an increased offer in on the property after the first was rejected. If I ever want to find out the result of that offer, I expect I'll have to call them.

I'd appreciate some info from other forum users on how involved an EA is after the offers stage. I have appointed a very efficient solicitor, but if I'm going to face relentless stalling, messing about and phone calls never being returned, I think I'll find another house to buy.

Thanks for any help you can offer!

ellie27

I am pretty sure its should all be solicitor to solicitor from then on and you should never have to deal with the estate agent again.

However, our sellers agents have been good as we have had a few questions that we wanted to ask and the agents spoke to the sellers and got back very quickly, hours later. If we had to go through solicitors for that it would have no doubt been a week or so til they got back to us!!

Did they say the sellers would need 4 days or so to respond to your offer? If not, then thats poor. I would expect to hear feedback within a couple hours regarding an offer that has been made.

Good luck!

DRP

I think an EA should be involved.

When I have bought / sold, there is a Sales team and a Progressions team. There are hundreds of little (important) things that a good progressions team will deal with, as solicitors will take forever.

Our sellers' EA rescued the purchase/sale in the last few weeks, it simply wouldn't have happened without them.

p00hsticks

Unless the vendor is prepared to deal directly with you and is local (i.e. it's not an empty property with the vendor miles way), then you'll probably need to arrange any surveys, second viewings etc via the estate agent.

Rosetinted

Thanks for the replies thus far, folks. Much appreciated.

Ellie, this is par for the course with this estate agent. I only heard back about my first offer after 48 hours by calling the estate agent three times. It's always the same story: 'Sorry, we're really busy, but I was planning to call you.' Ha bloody ha! When I made my increased offer and they said they'd call me right back, I almost laughed derisively down the phone.

DRP, that is what I feared. With the probate sale of my grandmother's place, the estate agent has been whipping the solicitors along, keeping the momentum and acting as an intermediary between solicitors, buyer and seller. They are exceptionally good, however, so I wasn't sure if this is the norm.

p00hsticks, the viewings are all done, so that's fine, but everything else is still to do. I'd guess the seller isn't interested in getting involved. I know this agent has sold/is selling several properties for him, so they're an unavoidable part of the process. Boo!

Surrey_EA

It really does vary.

Some EAs can be invaluable in getting a sale through to a successful conclusion, others will do practically nothing.

The experience of your grandmother's sale is how it should work, but it doesn't sound like you're going to be as luck this time around.

Rosetinted

Thanks, Surrey_EA. Good to know that I'm on the normal spectrum between useless and brilliant, but unfortunately am stuck at the useless end with this particular agent.

Thrugelmir

Rosetinted wrote: »

It's always the same story: 'Sorry, we're really busy, but I was planning to call you.' Ha bloody ha! When I made my increased offer and they said they'd call me right back, I almost laughed derisively down the phone.

The vendors will decide whether to accept the offer or not. Not the EA. Little point in expecting news when there isn't any.

Rosetinted

Well, I called after work and found out they'd had two viewings over the weekend and allegedly another offer, which they asked if I'd match or better, so it's not a case of expecting news when there isn't any. Turns out there's news aplenty, it's just not quite making it through to me!

pickles13

Since my offer got accepted, I called the EA once to arrange a second viewing. At that viewing, the seller gave us her personal details and from then on, everything has been through her or the solicitors. However.....there is one small query that the solicitors cannot seem to get an answer from. Whenever they go back with queries, they get answers except from this one thing so today I have emailed the EA asking if she can step in and try to get an answer direct (its about money and I don't want to approach the seller direct about this one thing.) I am hoping they help out!

Rosetinted

Thanks, Pickles, that's very helpful. It seems that EAs are involved as much or as little as they want to be. I'd guess this EA is of the 'totally disinterested once a sale is agreed' type. Still, it's good to know that this doesn't seem to matter too much.

As the negotiations seem to be going nowhere fast, it looks like I won't be going any further with this property anyway, so I'll be dodging a bullet, EA-wise. Onward and upwards!