Complaint about Estate Agent....

pinklady21

Hello
I have made a formal complaint to my former Estate Agent about their general incompetence that (in my view) contributed to 2 sales failing to complete.

I sacked them and wrote a letter of complaint.
I heard nothing, was simply sent a bill.
I then complained to Head Office, and they finally investigated my complaint, and offered me £150 mainly for their failure to properly investigate the first time.

I wrote back disagreeing with some of their findings and offering to pay half the EA bill (around £500) in full and final settlement.
They replied with some more inaccurate findings and increased their offer to £250 and made a formal apology.

As you can imagine, having lost out substantially on two failed sales, plus all the legal and other fees I incurred and my own purchase of a new property failing as a result..... I am not terribly happy with their offer.
The next stage would be the Property Ombudsman.

Questions are:
1. How likely is the Ombudsman to increase the offer already made by Head Office?
Is £250 the "going rate" for these sorts of complaints, and it is unlikely to be increased any further? Might the Ombudsman reduce the amount of compensation?

2. Should I simply stick to my guns, continue to offer the EA 50% in full and final settlement in the expectation that they won't want to sue me for the difference? or should I take my chances with the Ombudsman?

Thank you!

m0bov

Might help if we knew the details of what happened!

davidmcn

m0bov wrote: »

Might help if we knew the details of what happened!

Indeed - if someone really wants to buy your house, they can probably overcome the fact the agents are incompetent.

G_M

pinklady21 wrote: »

Questions are:
1. How likely is the Ombudsman to increase the offer already made by Head Office?
Very likely assuming you ccan show the EA's errors/mismanagement cosst you more than th current offer
Very unlikely assuming the EA made a minor error with little impact on the overal service
Is £250 the "going rate" for these sorts of complaints,
as you've not descrribed the complaint, how can we reply?
and it is unlikely to be increased any further?
See reply above
Might the Ombudsman reduce the amount of compensation?
yes. Might.

2. Should I simply stick to my guns, continue to offer the EA 50% in full and final settlement in the expectation that they won't want to sue me for the difference?
depends what your complaint is; How strong your evidence is; what losses you've incured
or should I take my chances with the Ombudsman?
depends what your complaint is; How strong your evidence is; what losses you've incured
Thank you!

We're not psychic unfortunately.

pinklady21

Thanks all - sorry just edited this post to make it easier to follow. This is rather a long post but you wanted details! Finding the wee box a bit tricky to type, so I hope this is clear.....

Basically what happened:
Marketed property with agent
Viewings and rejected a few low offers
Closing date set - accepted highest offer from Buyer No1

Buyer No1 pulled out after a few weeks as he wanted a swift entry date - while we the agent had called us a week after the offer was accepted to tell us the date he wanted, the EA who was negotiating on our behalf never gave us an inkling he might walk. According to her he was "excited and really keen to buy our house"

When he pulled out, we went to Buyer no2.
We successfully bid him up to within a few thousand of the first offer, and agreed a entry date. Happy Datys.
But..... EA told us he was ready to buy, failed to either find out or mention to us that his sale had not concluded missives, and that was contingent on their buyer selling a house abroad.
No contact with EA at all, all done via solicitors, and Buyer No2 finally pulled out 4 months later, with EA only offering to contact them the day before their solicitors advise us.

We are in Scotland, so I assume the The Property Ombudsman Scotland Code of Practice applies? even though the EA operates in Scotland under a different name, but is part of a nationwide chain based in England. I assume that as property law in Scotland is different, it will have to be the Scottish one.

Just reading the guidance for EAs from the TPO website
https://www.tpos.co.uk/tpo-scotland

Seems the EA has been in breach of a number of areas:

9a failed to send seller (ie me) offers in writing within 2 working days
I received a written notification of only one of the offers.
The first buyer received nothing from the EA.

10a and 10c failed to advise me of buyer's situation re their ability to proceed with purchase, and failed to continue to monitor this up to conclusion of missives (similar to exchange)

My first buyer wanted a date of entry we were unable to meet and we tried to negotiate via the EA.
The buyer seemed happy with what we agreed......but continued to look at other properties and pulled out three weeks later. The EA did not advise us of this, our solicitor did.

12a continue to monitor progress of the sale between acceptance and a
conclusion of missives
No contact whatsoever with my second buyer until the day before they finally pulled out, at which point the EA "offered to phone them"
Throughout, my solicitor had been liasing with the buyers solicitors, but the EA did nothing

14d failures in complaint handling - "All written complaints must be acknowledged in writing within 3 working days and a proper
investigation promptly undertaken"
failed to acknowledge or properly investigate my complaint for over a month and only when I wrote a second letter
They have agreed this point.

14f complaint to Ombudsman final letter must:
This letter must also tell the Complainant how the matter can be referred to the Ombudsman, pointing out that any such referral by the Complainant must be made within 12 months of your final view

they have failed to explicitly tell me that there is a 12 month time limit

14g they must not imply that payment of any outstanding commission fee or additional costsis a pre-condition of a review by the Ombudsman.
Their letter tells me that "the TPO does specify that that there is an expectation that a vendor should pay their commission fee on a without prejudice basis....."

18a Aggressive behaviour / Harassment
Illustrative example for the list:
"In order to make commission quickly, pressurising a seller client to accept an offer at a lower price than is reasonable for their property, for example by telling them that they cannot get a better offer"

They tried this with a couple of early offers, telling me I would not do any better. I refused to accept the low offers, much to the annoyance of the EA. The offers I finally accepted were both over £30k higher!

18k Harass/Harassment. Unwanted conduct which has the purpose or effect of:
• violating a person’s dignity;
• creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for a person

When I went into the office to hand in my letter of complaint and terminate the contract, I spoke to the manager. The person who had been handling my "sale" not only completely ignored me and my OH, but at one point leant across me to pick something up off the manager's desk. At no point did she even acknowledge me.
Rude - but is it also intimidatory and hostile?
She was downright rude to me throughout the many months I dealt with her....

What do folks think? Take their £250 offer or continue the complaint?

G_M

Dubious. Take the money and be grateful.

at least 50% of that relates tto the complaint handling, not the complaint itself. They've acknowldged the complaint handling and made an offer.

pinklady21 wrote: »

We are in Scotland, so I assume the The Property Ombudsman Scotland Code of Practice applies? even though the EA operates in Scotland under a different name, but is part of a nationwide chain based in England. I assume that as property law in Scotland is different, it will have to be the Scottish one.
Where is the property? That' what is relevant.

Just reading the guidance for EAs from the TPO website
https://www.tpos.co.uk/tpo-scotland

Seems the EA has been in breach of a number of areas.

9a failed to send seller (ie me) offers in writing within 2 working days
I received a written notification of only one of the offers.
The first buyer received nothing from the EA.
but you did receive and accept the offer, so it's not as if you lost out as a result. Minor issue.

10a and 10c failed to advise me of buyer's situation re their ability to proceed with purchase, and failed to continue to monitor this up to conclusion of missives (similar to exchange)

My first buyer wanted a date of entry we were unable to meet and we tried to negotiate via the EA.
The buyer seemed happy with what we agreed......but continued to look at other properties and pulled out three weeks later. The EA did not advise us of this, our solicitor did.
EA cannot prevent a buyer continuing to look. And may well not have known the buyer pulled out before the solicitor did.
Do you know?

12a continue to monitor progress of the sale between acceptance and a
conclusion of missives
No contact whatsoever with my second buyer until the day before they finally pulled out, at which point the EA "offered to phone them"
Throughout, my solicitor had been liasing with the buyers solicitors, but the EA did nothing
Again - if the buyer did not tell the EA they were planning to pull out, the EA could not do anything. They can only 'monitor' to the extent that the buyer keeps them informed.
Do you know whether the EA made (or did not make) phone calls to the buyer at any stage?

14d failures in complaint handling - "All written complaints must be acknowledged in writing within 3 working days and a proper
investigation promptly undertaken"
failed to acknowledge or properly investigate my complaint for over a month and only when I wrote a second letter
They have agreed this point.Indeed

14f complaint to Ombudsman final letter must:
This letter must also tell the Complainant how the matter can be referred to the Ombudsman, pointing out that any such referral by the Complainant must be made within 12 months of your final view

they have failed to explicitly tell me that there is a 12 month time limit OK. But have you now missed the 12 month deadline as a result?

14g they must not imply that payment of any outstanding commission fee or additional costsis a pre-condition of a review by the Ombudsman.
Their letter tells me that "the TPO does specify that that there is an expectation that a vendor should pay their commission fee on a without prejudice basis....."
naughty!

18a Aggressive behaviour / Harassment
Illustrative example for the list:
"In order to make commission quickly, pressurising a seller client to accept an offer at a lower price than is reasonable for their property, for example by telling them that they cannot get a better offer"

They tried this with a couple of early offers, telling me I would not do any better. I refused to accept the low offers, much to the annoyance of the EA. The offers I finally accepted were both over £30k higher!
Hard to prove whether this was poor price advice, or deliberate policy to gain commission

18k Harass/Harassment. Unwanted conduct which has the purpose or effect of:
• violating a person’s dignity;
• creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for a person

When I went into the office to hand in my letter of complaint and terminate the contract, I spoke to the manager. The person who had been handling my "sale" not only completely ignored me and my OH, but at one point leant across me to pick something up off the manager's desk. At no point did she even acknowledge me.
Rude - but is it also intimidatory and hostile?
She was downright rude to me throughout the many months I dealt with her....
Your taking to the manager, not her. Indeed as you were (presumabky) discussing her she should probably not have got involved. Bit rude? Yes. but then she was understandably unhappy witt you for making a complaint about her......
What do folks think?

davidmcn

pinklady21 wrote: »

EA told us he was ready to buy, failed to either find out or mention to us that his sale had not concluded missives, and that was contingent on their buyer selling a house abroad.

Wasn't their offer conditional on them concluding their sale? If not then that suggests they didn't tell their solicitor either (solicitors are required to make that explicit in offers), in which case it's doubtful they would have revealed it to your EA.

12a continue to monitor progress of the sale between acceptance and a
conclusion of missives
No contact whatsoever with my second buyer until the day before they finally pulled out, at which point the EA "offered to phone them"
Throughout, my solicitor had been liasing with the buyers solicitors, but the EA did nothing

At this stage I would expect most of the progress to be between the solicitors anyway, it's not really normal for the EA to duplicate the work (unless they're prompted by you because there seems to be a problem).

pinklady21

Thanks all.
I suppose the bottom line here is the difference between what their offer of £250 to me and my offer of 50% of their fee.
About £250 apart. How likely they are to want to go to the effort and expense of suing me for that amount?

googler

pinklady21 wrote: »

We are in Scotland, so I assume the The Property Ombudsman Scotland Code of Practice applies?

IF the EA is a member.

9a failed to send seller (ie me) offers in writing within 2 working days
I received a written notification of only one of the offers.
The first buyer received nothing from the EA.

I wouldn't expect to receive copies of all offers in writing from any agent or solicitor that I hired. I'd expect, if they received a single offer, a phone call or e-mail to discuss the offer, and to take my instructions on acceptance or otherwise. I'd expect my agent to then respond to the buyer's solicitor accordingly. I'd expect a copy of an accepted offer only. Why would I want a copy of one I'd rejected?

In busier markets in Scotland, properties go to closing dates, wherein buyer's solicitors fax, e-mail or hand-deliver their offers to the selling agent before a particular day and time. One of these is selected as the winning offer within hours by agent and seller, usually over the phone. As a seller, I would have no interest in receiving paper copies of all the unsuccessful offers, only the successful one.

I'm not sure what you're expecting the buyer themselves to have received. The normal modus operandi in Scotland is, if an offer is accepted, for the seller's solicitor to formally accept it with either a qualified or unqualified acceptance letter to the buyer's solicitor. This would not go to the buyer.

Got to step away, may be back to look at other points later.

pinklady21

But.... that is what the code of practice for Estate Agents says they ought to be doing. And they failed to follow the code.....

https://www.tpos.co.uk/images/documents/rules-codes-obligations/scotland/Code_of_Practice_Residential_Estate_Agents_in_Scotland_effective_1_October_2016.pdf

googler

pinklady21 wrote: »

But.... that is what the code of practice for Estate Agents says they ought to be doing. And they failed to follow the code.....

.. but you received the offer which you accepted, as was stated above. There's no reason to need or want those you rejected, regardless of what the code says.

What would you do with the other offers? Wallpaper the loo? File them away for reference?