Agencies withhold properties if you refuse to use their in-house Broker

Ithaca

What's the likely commission on using an in-house mortgage broker or solicitor? Can't be more than a few £100? I'd be surprised if the estate agents would delay the sales commission on a £250k house for the sake of a relatively small commission on the mortgage.

Sometimes it's to stop time-wasters but if your mortgage adviser has already spoken with the EA it's unlikely to be that.

It sounds like it's a probate sale so there may be no great urgency for the vendors to agree a sale... we looked at a house when we were buying which was £50k over the price ceiling, and where the EA was very blunt that he considered it way overpriced, but the vendors didn't need to release the funds any time soon and figured it was worth holding on in case they found someone daft/desperate enough to offer the higher value.

If you do have to sit through a meeting with the EA's mortgage adsier you may only to ask two questions: (1) do you cover whole-of-market rather than just a limited panel, and (2) do you get your commission from the lender with no up-front applicant fee? If the answer answer to both is "no" (which it probably will be) it gives you a good reason to politely walk away without antagonising the EA unnecessarily.

ireneboston

I am happy to show all the documents to prove I am not a time waster, they know that.

Also this is not the first agent that tries so amazingly hard to sell their broker (was surprise to me too as I also wonder their commissions can't be that much), one other for example emailed me saying: "the property is popular, so the only way we can put you in the best position is if you were to go with our finance guy..", we said no, and they said "oh, so you r willing to let a really good house go just because of this", they were interested in the sale...

So our offers were reasonable and of course there could be other buyers but it is not that....

ireneboston

Thank you so much for attaching the code of practice. It appears that what the agencies are doing is not at all legal, I wonder if they just hope that we do not know the laws.
This is what the code says:
9. Offers
9a By law, you must tell sellers as soon as is reasonably possible
about all offers that you receive at any time until contracts
have been exchanged unless the offer is an amount
or type which the seller has specifically instructed you, in
writing, not to pass on.
......
9c By law you cannot make it a condition of passing on offers to
the seller that the buyer must use services offered by you or
another party