Estate Agent "vetting"

Landofwood

kinger101 wrote: »

Er....my solicitor would confirm I had a deposit if I instructed them to do so (and I'd provided the evidence). They don't need to give the actual amount anyway. They can just say the DIP + deposit is sufficient for the offer price. But at the end of the day, this isn't something I did. I'd not even raised solicitors confirmations. I just sent a copy of a statement from a savings account when I put in my offer (and not before), together with an AIP. Whereas you'd be struggling to confirm you had the deposit you lied about for some unfathomable reason.

I've never had an offer rejected for withholding information. I've had one rejected because we couldn't meet on price, but the discussions with the EA remained polite at all times.

I've only over gone head to head with other buyers once, and my bid won. So there's no point trying to say my approach has failed me.

I'm not sure what you're arguing about. You seem to suggest lying is a good way of building up a relationship with an Estate Agent. If you were less abrupt with people, perhaps you'd be able to handle the EA honestly without offending them. The are other ways to cement the relationship with them, such as giving honest feedback on viewings, and turning up on time, everytime.

Why on earth would you instruct your solicitor to disclose anything to the estate agent? It would be better for your independent mortgage broker to confirm affordability, or if you did not use one you can provide an AIP with the relevant info blanked out. I do not recommend using the EA's mortgage broker.

This conversation has gone sideways. Let's remind ourselves of the issue:

There were 2 pieces of advice given:

1. Write to the vendor to complain about the EA and be generally uncooperative with the EA.

Or

2. Be overly cooperative with the EA

One of these pieces of advice gives you a greater chance of securing the property.

Char89

Yes this was for South London

HereBeDragons_2

I agree the conversation has gone a little sideways.

Landofwood - on one hand you advocate bending over backwards and fully cooperating with all the estate agent's demands for your financial information up front prior to registration for viewing, and on the other you've just said that it's better for your broker to independently confirm affordability or failing that to show an AIP with blacked out information - which of course is what any savvy buyer should be doing.

This is exactly my dilemma, and why I posted in the first place. If you cooperate with these demands to disclose your AIP and deposit up front just in order to get a viewing with these agents, you will never hold any negotiating power as they know your full financial picture. Which you clearly agree is not in a buyer's best interests and should be avoided.

So - what should a buyer do in order to preserve their interests here? I'm not only interested in securing a property - it has to be at a reasonable price too, and a buyer is more likely to achieve that if the agent doesn't know their maximum budget from the outset.

I'd be interested to know if agents are demanding AIP & deposit disclosure outside of London too, and how others deal with it when the agent refuses to register you for viewings without it.

skintpaul

I would ask EA what (if any) qualifications / licence they have, to do such checks, are they registered for Data Protection, etc..

Out,_Vile_Jelly

To be honest there is not much wriggle room with London prices so your negotiating power is limited anyway. I would inform them that you have an AIP after meeting a whole of market broker and therefore aren't interested in other deals, have instructed a solicitor (do so if you haven't) and give a vague idea of your deposit, saying confirmation can be requested from your solicitor if necessary. There is a fine balance between appearing like a time waster and rolling over to their every demand.

I bought in London nearly two years ago and they were keen for me to meet the usual in house broker, which I firmly declined. I gave rough details of my deposit and max budget, and also mentioned where I rented as that would give an idea of what I was good for without revealing too much personal info. In the end I was first to view a probate property whose details hadn't yet gone online, and got it for below asking price which in hindsight was a good deal.

kinger101

HereBeDragons wrote: »

I agree the conversation has gone a little sideways.

Landofwood - on one hand you advocate bending over backwards and fully cooperating with all the estate agent's demands for your financial information up front prior to registration for viewing, and on the other you've just said that it's better for your broker to independently confirm affordability or failing that to show an AIP with blacked out information - which of course is what any savvy buyer should be doing.

Whatever you do, don't send a redacted AIP to them. This is just a passive-aggressive way of refusing to give them the information they requested. It's better just to tell them they can't see if before the offer (and provide details of solicitor as OVJ suggests).

HereBeDragons_2

I've seen several threads on here about making offers where people have advocated showing your AIP at offer stage when asked to prove you have one, but with the amount being borrowed blacked out.

I would have thought that as long as you reassure them at the same time that your solicitor/broker can verify you're good for the selling price then that's better than not showing any proof of AIP at all when making the offer.

I don't think it's particularly passive-aggressive. It would be foolish to show an agent the maximum amount you can borrow (especially in London!). It's none of their business, and they know that.

kinger101

At the offer stage, I'd just show them the AIP anyway. It's fairly easy to get them reissued with the number you want for the offer rather than the number you wanted when you were searching for houses.

TBH, an AIP that has been redacted is fairly useless, as almost anyone can get one. If I told you I had £1M in the bank and then gave you a blacked out bank statement, would you believe me? I think it would have been the solicitor/broker confirmation that convinced them.

HereBeDragons_2

kinger101 wrote: »

At the offer stage, I'd just show them the AIP anyway. It's fairly easy to get them reissued with the number you want for the offer rather than the number you wanted when you were searching for houses.

Ah, I didn't realise that. Thanks.

kinger101 wrote: »

TBH, an AIP that has been redacted is fairly useless, as almost anyone can get one. If I told you I had £1M in the bank and then gave you a blacked out bank statement, would you believe me? I think it would have been the solicitor/broker confirmation that convinced them.

Absolutely, though a redacted AIP does at least demonstrate you've gone to the bother of getting one. I agree they are easy enough to get, though in the case of my lender I had to supply P60s, payslips, the last 3 months of bank statements (on which I was questioned) plus details of all income and outgoings, which I believe is not the case for most AIPs. I would hope a good agent would recognise that.

As per my original post, offering assurances that my solicitor will verify I'm good for deposit and selling price upon acceptance of offer is, in some cases, resulting in me being ruled out of even registering with certain agents. I'm now thinking the best way around that is to ask my solicitor to send me an email confirming they are appointed and ready to go, that they are in receipt of a copy of my AIP and proof of deposit funds, and that they are happy to confirm to agents that I am good for an offer. I can then pass that on to any agents at either registration or offer stage.

nLdn

stator wrote: »

Is this estate agent part of Connells Group?


They are scum, I boycott them out of principle.

Sorry to resurrect a zombie thread but...

... I just called about a property near me with an agent ive not yet dealt with and within the first few sentences the agent asked what the value of my deposit is. I asked why he needed to know that information, stating that I'm more than happy to give you written confirmation of my AIP from my broker or even put him in touch with her but I will not disclose that information.
Agent got shirty saying something like "well if I'm going to let you buy a property I need to know information about you". I repeated that I'm happy to share AIP information but not this.

He paused and then got on with asking if I'd view the property that hes got under offer, inviting me to gazump the other buyer.

By strange coincidence this was a Connells agent.