Estate Agent forcing us to use their recommended solicitor

grainy_2

Hi forum,
I have had an offer accepted on a house purchase (I'm a first time buyer) and the estate agent has told me I must use a solicitor from their recommended panel. They say I must do this because the lady in buying the house from is now in a care home and has no access to a telephone (they say the care home phone line is in the office 3 floors from her bedroom and it's not cordless, they also say no signal in the care home for a mobile phone..). They say my solicitor would need to visit the lady in the care home and only those on their panel will do this.
Now this sounds all very suspect to me..
However, I agreed because I really want to the house! So I am given a solicitor and they are dreadful, so dreadful I leave them and go out and pick my own (helped by this forum). Sorted this all out with my new chosen solicitor and ring the estate agent to let them know and they tell me I can't do this for the above mentioned reasons. So I phone my new solicitor and tell them all this and they suggest they would have no reason to ever go to see the house seller in the care home, that is for her own solicitor to do. So they are basically telling me the EA is taking me for a ride. However I don't want to loose the house.
Please help!!!
Thank you

Bossypants

Maybe I'm being daft, but why on earth would your solicitor need to visit, or even speak to her? I presume she isn't doing the conveyancing herself if she's in a carehome... Last place I bought, the seller was in South Africa, her solicitor wasn't close either, and my solicitor managed just fine from the comfort of his office.

Edit: Sorry that wasn't much help, ask your EA to put the requirement and the reason for it in an email to you, then you can speak to your solicitor about it (assuming you ever get it, doubt it frankly).

grainy_2

Thanks bossy pants, your reply is appreciated im just looking for any help really. I don't want to loose the house but at the same time I'm getting soo fed up for being taken for a ride... Maybe it's cause I'm a first time buyer/ female/ young (ish)... Yadda...

elsien

Care homes have cordless phones that can be taken to residents when they get or make a call. And your solicitor would not contact the person directly anyway. The estate agent is talking cobblers.
I'd like to see them trying to explain to their sellers how they potentially lost their sale for them by telling you porkies.

Bossypants

Your only choices are to stand up to the EA and insist on clarification (no need to be rude, just stand your ground), walk away or go back to their solicitors.

Personally I would pick option 1 or 2, this is weird enough that, unless they have a watertight explanation, I would be seriously concerned about where else they are trying it on.

I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but there is always another house.

franklee

Try to collect some evidence, can you get it in email. If it was just on the phone then hard for you to prove what happened.

Can you go higher up in the EA to get this overturned. E.g. branch manager. After that if it's an EA with more than one branch who is higher up?

Ask them what redress scheme they are in. Find out what else they are members of e.g. NAEA. Then I'd tell the EA to play nicely or you will make a written complaint to them and every body they are a member of.

chris_m

grainy wrote: »

They say my solicitor would need to visit the lady in the care home

A buyer's solicitor would have no reason whatsoever to visit the seller personally.

The real reason the EA wants you to use their solicitor is almost certainly because they will be getting a kickback from it. Did they want you to use their surveyor as well? How about their mortgage advisor?

eddddy

Is the EA a a member of the Property Ombudsman Scheme? If so, refer them to their mandatory Code of Practice for Residential Estate Agents

Here's some selected extracts:

General Obligations

1d ... You must avoid any course of action that can be construed as aggressive behaviour (*) or harassment (*)



18. Glossary of Terms

In this Code, the following interpretations and definitions apply:

18a Aggressive Behaviour. Here are some illustrative examples of aggressive behaviour or practices...
...

● Pressurising a potential buyer to use associated services, for example to take out a mortgage through the in-house mortgage advisor or to use a particular firm of solicitors or licensed conveyancers

Link: https://www.tpos.co.uk/images/documents/rules-codes-obligations/residential-estate-agents/tpoe27-2-code-of-practice-for-residential-estate-agents.pdf

TBagpuss

As others have said, your solicitor would have absolutely no reason to visit the seller. It's unlikely that the seller's OWN solicitor would need to, but if anyone did, t would be the seller's solicitor, not yours.

I'd suggest that you speak your own solicitor, explain to them what the agent is saying and let them contact the agent.

prowla

I could be mistaken, but weren't there rules recently passed saying they can't do that?

worried_jim

prowla wrote: »

I could be mistaken, but weren't there rules recently passed saying they can't do that?

That will be post #8 then.