Estate Agents False Marketing

Printjobber

My daughter is buying her first flat. All the advertising material (dating back on-line to April 2015) says that the property comes with parking. Our hard copy brochures describes the parking. Just before Christmas we start off the mortgage process (fees paid), solicitor (fees paid), my daughter flies back to the UK specifically to view the property (costly) and the surveyor visits (fees paid). Surveyor's report arrives and says Yes to 'Garage' but No to 'Private Parking'. I managed to attend the surveyors visit, much to the Estate Agent's (EA) dislike (why not since we are paying for the survey?). He called me at the very last moment and hence he had time alone with the surveyor before I joined them. This must be when they covered the parking. Wrote to EA (cc my Solicitor and EA Director) asking him to clarify that the property has parking... he said that garaging is private parking (hmmm?). We now have the Leasehold information pack and it says there is no parking associated with the property. The EA is a member of the Property Ombudsman Scheme (no other professional affiliations) so I have started off the first steps of their official complaints procedure with an e-mail to the Director (cc vendor's solicitor and everyone else I can think of). Director has replied telling me he has tonsillitis, that they were simply taking the instructions of the vendor, not to threaten them with the Ombudsman and to calm down... guaranteed to get someone more irate. My reply wished him improved health and emphasised that I was not threatening, simply trying to decide whether to use the Courts or The Property Ombudsman. Any views on how to proceed and chances of success? I do have everything in written form... always keep your papers, emails and texts!!

Innys1

Find another flat?

YAHOO.

G_M

I imagine it depends what the vendors told the agents.

Agents are not lawyers and don't check Title documents, leases etc (if they did, where would it end?), so they describe properties as best they can based on the information they are given.

Having said that, I agree there's a difference between a 'garage' and private parking', so that's a feeble excuse. And I think I would expect an agent, when taking instructions/measuring up, to ask the vendors where the 'private parking' is.

Try pushing the internal complaints process and then the ombudsman. Who knows? You might get some fees back....

marksoton

Um, it's a exclusive garage. You put a car in it it's private parking is it not? As opposed to allocated which would suggest exclusive use of an open public area.

Success with what exactly?

Mrs_pbradley936

Your solicitor is the one seeing to the contract. The Estate Agent is just advertising and although you may have been mislead it is up to your solicitor to ascertain precisely what is being purchased. That is why you have one. All the legalities are his department.

The Estate Agent does not provide the contact hence you cannot legally claim to have been mislead. You may not want to proceed or you may proceed at a different figure. It is entirely up to you (well the would be buyer).

davidmcn

It's not clear what the flat actually includes - does it have neither a garage nor a parking space? Not sure I understand why you'd quibble about a garage being included when you expected a mere outdoor parking space? It's obviously a private place to park your car.

GwylimT

I would consider a garage private parking, a space would normally be referred to as allocated parking. But anyway, an estate agent isn't obliged to check these things, which is why you should also not rely on an estate agent knowing the length of the lease.

AdrianC

The EA relies on the vendor to provide information.
The buyer's solicitor double-checks that the information provided is accurate.

So what's happened here is exactly what your daughter is paying her solicitor to do for her.

B'sides, as has already been said, if a garage isn't "private parking", what on earth is it?

The other thing that's causing me to raise my eyebrows is that you are so involved in this. The EA and solicitors should not be dealing directly with the buyer's mother or anybody else who isn't directly involved in the transaction.

kinger101

Mrs_pbradley936 wrote: »

Your solicitor is the one seeing to the contract. The Estate Agent is just advertising and although you may have been mislead it is up to your solicitor to ascertain precisely what is being purchased. That is why you have one. All the legalities are his department.

The Estate Agent does not provide the contact hence you cannot legally claim to have been mislead. You may not want to proceed or you may proceed at a different figure. It is entirely up to you (well the would be buyer).

This is not entirely true. Anyone advertising something has a duty to market stuff accurately, including estate agents. It's just not particularly clear on what the EAs duties are when they are receiving information from a vendor. If they suspect information is inaccurate, then they've certainly breached the Consumer Protection Act.

A more clear cut example would be if a loft room was marketed as a bedroom, and the EA omitted to check whether it had building regulations. I'm not so sure whether the EA has done something wrong here, but that's the whole point of ombudsman. It doesn't cost anything more that a few postage stamps and a bit of time to follow the path OP has already started taking.

The EA was prompted on numerous occasions to obtain an answer as to what parking was available. The moment they became aware it didn't have any parking they had a duty to inform the buyer. I'm not sure this is what has happened here.

googler

bonitoa wrote: »

My daughter is buying her first flat. All the advertising material (dating back on-line to April 2015) says that the property comes with parking. Our hard copy brochures describes the parking.

Describes it as ... what?

bonitoa wrote: »

my daughter flies back to the UK specifically to view the property (costly)

Of what relevance is this? It's not the EA's fault your daughter has chosen to buy when out of the country

bonitoa wrote: »

Any views on how to proceed and chances of success?

How to proceed with what? What do you want to achieve?

Nike79

Legally speaking there is no chance the EA can be sued. As others have said EA is there just for marketing purposes and he just passes the information the vendor has given them and they dot have a legal duty to check the things which are normally done through conveyancing. of course they shouldn't knowingly misleeed the buyers and you can go through complain procedure but at the end of the day you won't finically benefit from that, but get yourself involved in a lot of hassle.

I have been viewing the flats for many years and have came across a lot of nonsense stated in property ads so trust me you will get used to it after you will do a few viewings.