EA Issues

joshardy

Good morning,

We've offered on a house and had it accepted. We had to see the EA's in house Mortgage Advisor before they would accept the offer to prove we can afford the house. We did this and they said they are happy we can afford it.

We're getting the hard sell on using their in house MA and solicitor services. This culminated in a phone call (shortly after the offer had been accepted) saying the vendor wants to keep the house on the market until the lender valuation is booked and we have a date. I pushed back against this but the EA then stated that the vendor would prefer us to use the in house service etc. We have a broker we are happy with a solicitor in mind that we are happy with.

This seems unfair to us, we believe it is reasonable to take the property off the market. Does anyone have any advice?

horseymchorseface

Do not use the EA services at all costs. It is vendors preference if they want to keep it on market or not until valuation survey done.


If you don't like how it's going, view other houses and give this EA and vendor a miss.

always_sunny

you didn't have to see the EA FA, you caved in and decided to go in.
Assuming you're in England, seems pretty normal, if you decide to pull out any day is fine, isn't it?

Do not use in house services, have yours, if they don't like how you want to conduct business, find another house.

pinkshoes

Not Connells is it?

Just say you have your own mortgage advisor and decline. I am quite sure the vendor did NOT say this...

anselld

Did you make your offer conditional on it coming off the market? If so, tell them you will proceed when/if they honour that.

G_M

Try to let the vendor know. I'm sure they are not insisting you use the inhouse adviser, and don't even know their EA is insisting on this.

And the EA could, at a pinch, tell you the vendor has changed their mind about your offer while telling the vendor you've changed your mind!

Maybe a polite friendly letter to the agent, with a copy to the vendor,
* confirming your offer
* thanking them for verifying that you have the funds for the purchanse
* thanking them for offering their mortgage adviser services
* declining their services as you have your own broker, xyz, who has already arranged funding

Finish by saying howmuch you like the property and how keen you are to move the purchase forward.

The seller will be pleased and reassured, and the EA will have no option but to support the sale.

ps The POS code of practice says:

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. You must not discriminate, or threaten to
discriminate, against a buyer because that person declines to
accept that you will (directly or indirectly) provide related
services to them. Discrimination includes but is not limited to
the following:
• Failing to tell the seller of an offer to buy the property.
• Telling the seller of an offer less quickly than other offers
you have received.
• Misrepresenting the nature of the offer or that of rival offers.
• Giving details of properties for sale first to buyers who
have indicated they are prepared to let you provide services
to them.

robatwork

This is the problem with EAs.

It's the vast majority of the awful, lying, amoral ones that give the tiny minority of good ones a bad name.

gettingtheresometime

Our son is having this problem.

Fortunately we are mortgage free and given that the properties he's looking at are below the value of ours, we've told him to tell them the bank of mum & dad are lending him the money.

We're not but that seems to shut them up

EA1

As an EA it would be reasonable to keep a property on the market until either an access call is received to confirm the date/time of the survey or indeed the survey takes place.


The reason for this is not to try and sell the property from under anyone but merely to protect the vendor which of course the agent represents. You would have to define 'keep the house on market until the valuation is booked' as this could be interpreted in different ways.


1) The property could remain on the market with no viewings (advised in most cases with time constraints), names and numbers of buyers would be taken in case the sale falls through.


2) The property could remain on the market, viewings go ahead but no offers will be taken (agent would need written permission from vendor not to put offers forward to them)


3) The property could remain on the market, viewings take place and further offers are considered. This is where you may have the problem.


Put yourself in the seller’s position. Your property is removed from the market and weeks go by without survey. The lender requests more and more info during the mortgage application stage causing delay. Your mortgage may not get through application or worse still you have a change of personnel circumstances meaning you are unable to proceed with the purchase. None of the above helps the vendor and they will be back to square one with significant lose in marketing time and will likely have to start the whole process again.


It's worth considering we currently operate within an outdated, prehistoric system which protects neither party throughout the transaction so it it’s natural to look after the interests of number one!


Most agents will offer financial services and often larger corporate agents put more emphasis on their cross selling and financial services as it can be more lucrative than actually selling a house. The only addition I could advise is that you ask for their request in writing, I doubt very much they will be prepared to do it.


The vendor doesn't care if you use an agents services, they only think they do. By that I mean the agent in a case like this will likely have said if we keep everything in house it will make the transaction smoother and quicker blah blah blah.

saajan_12

I would agree it is selfish / harsh to expect you to use the EA's inhouse services, and you should stick to your own chosen providers here.

Separately, it is reasonable to keep the property 'on the market' until your survey / valuation is booked - that is the first proof the vendor has that you have invested money in the transaction through the survey / mortgage fee. They don't want to invest in you (by taking it off the market) until you have invested (in fees).

The EA may relax this requirement to sweeten the deal for their own goals of promoting their inhouse services, but if you've managed to stand your ground on that front, waiting for your survey to take it off the market is "normal".

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

joshardy wrote: »

Good morning,

We've offered on a house and had it accepted. We had to see the EA's in house Mortgage Advisor before they would accept the offer to prove we can afford the house. We did this and they said they are happy we can afford it.

We're getting the hard sell on using their in house MA and solicitor services. This culminated in a phone call (shortly after the offer had been accepted) saying the vendor wants to keep the house on the market until the lender valuation is booked and we have a date. I pushed back against this but the EA then stated that the vendor would prefer us to use the in house service etc. We have a broker we are happy with a solicitor in mind that we are happy with.

This seems unfair to us, we believe it is reasonable to take the property off the market. Does anyone have any advice?

Tell them "I wasn't born yesterday, **** off."