Estate agents mislead us

Surrey_EA

glentoran99 wrote: »

surely they only get paid when complete?

Purplebricks have a range of pricing models, some of which involve paying up front, meaning PB get paid irrespective of whether a sale goes through.

POPPYOSCAR

tallsmithy wrote: »

OK, the whole point of my post was to discover if anyone else has successfully held a estate agent to account... Going by replies so far it appears not or no one gives a shi....

Good luck with that one.

We were told by an estate agent that by paying a non-refundable deposit of £1000 the property would be taken off the market which we duly did and it was all in writing.

Several weeks down the line suddenly someone offers more, it is a long story what happened after that.

Our solicitor put in a complaint but nothing ever came of it.

You need to let it go.

Surrey_EA

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

Good luck with that one.

We were told by an estate agent that by paying a non-refundable deposit of £1000 the property would be taken off the market which we duly did and it was all in writing.

Several weeks down the line suddenly someone offers more, it is a long story what happened after that.

Our solicitor put in a complaint but nothing ever came of it.

You need to let it go.

Non-refundable deposits are exceptionally rare, in my experience. Solicitors can spend weeks drafting, and disputing, various clauses and amendments to a pre-contract deposit agreement.

An EA is under a legal obligation to put forward to the vendor any offer made for the property, irrespective of whether an earlier offer has been accepted.

Marcus-H_2

Ask your solicitor rather than an internet full of people who are not qualified to answer.
You could always pull out the sale & let the seller know why.. or you could try to renegotiate the deal.

chappers

Surrey_EA wrote: »

Non-refundable deposits are exceptionally rare, in my experience. Solicitors can spend weeks drafting, and disputing, various clauses and amendments to a pre-contract deposit agreement.

The legality of an EA taking them is also in question. Our vendor did mention the idea as a way of us convincing them that we were serious despite not having a buyer for our property and the EA said they would have nothing to do with it. It would have to be something between us and our respective solicitors. Both solicitors said they wouldn't act for us under such circumstances

POPPYOSCAR

Surrey_EA wrote: »

Non-refundable deposits are exceptionally rare, in my experience. Solicitors can spend weeks drafting, and disputing, various clauses and amendments to a pre-contract deposit agreement.

An EA is under a legal obligation to put forward to the vendor any offer made for the property, irrespective of whether an earlier offer has been accepted.

Quite.

He should never have asked us to do it in the first place. And he was obviously continuing to market the property regardless as this happened just before we were due to exchange.

We had a brilliant solicitor who exchanged contracts that day much to the annoyance of said estate agent who then tried to get us to sell the contract on. But that is another story.

london.cidade

pretamang wrote: »

If the only effect of this wrong information was some hassling and inconvenience then you've gotten away very lightly.

When I was a FTB there was no chain and no rush on either side: EA was still calling and hassling me to get things moving, even though they were moving along nicely with no problems and everything went smoothly.

On another property the EA advertised as Freehold; it turned out to be Leasehold with so many complications it couldn't be sold at all in the end. £2500 spent on fees etc., plus having to start over = tough luck. The EA was only passing on info from the seller.

You can't get compensation from an ignorant seller, they are not regulated and until exchange not contractually liable for anything. There are plenty of ignorant sellers out there all you can do is beware and brace yourself!

before putting an offer on a property I always buy the title register from land registry... just 3quid...

Thrugelmir

tallsmithy wrote: »

and to some extend also the seller,

Either the vendor did or they didn't. What did the vendor actually say or make you believe?

tallsmithy

The vendor failed to disclose that his partner is also in the chain and it suddenly came to light today that she is having problems with her buyer. At no point did the vendor make it clear that BOTH properties needed to be sold before he could move on. He was making excuses about paying extra stamp duty etc, but to be honest I couldn't care less now, I just want to complete!!!

Thrugelmir

tallsmithy wrote: »

The vendor failed to disclose that his partner is also in the chain and it suddenly came to light today that she is having problems with her buyer. At no point did the vendor make it clear that BOTH properties needed to be sold before he could move on. He was making excuses about paying extra stamp duty etc, but to be honest I couldn't care less now, I just want to complete!!!

Putting aside the issue of no chain. That's the nature of house buying and selling. Stressful time getting everything to line up. So much can go wrong for many reasons.