Estate agent forcing me to attend mortgage appointment to prove I am financially qualified?

mrchuckbass

Hello

Came across a house on Rightmove that I want to view. Called to set up a viewing, and was told I had to attend a mortgage appointment at their estate agents first, to prove I am financially qualified

I called up next day to cancel the mortgage appointment, and just keep the house viewing appointment, but I was told that if I wanted to cancel the mortgage appointment, I had to cancel the house viewing too, since the vendor wanted to ensure people are financially qualified. I told them that I already had a mortgage in principle, but they said the mortgage appointment was still required

Are they lying? I don’t have much experience of this (first time buyer), but my gut is telling me they are lying

From my perspective, I don’t want to attend the mortgage appointment because they will then know how much I can afford. They don’t need to know that information. I can afford much more than the asking price, but they don’t need to know that

Thanks!

Browntoa

Attend , waste their time ......go in with a list of requirements that match your current MIP and insist the advisor enters it into their notes before progressing , things like I only want to take a mortgage product from NatWest or nationwide , they MUST put that in ..

Tie their hands as much as they are attempting to do with you.

I attended my daughter's one unannounced as her "financial advisor " , refused to tell him any more about myself than that. I insisted he note before we started that we had an MIP and gave him a copy , that we were happy with that product and it was our preferred choice.

We refused hard sell on income protection , buildings insurance , life insurance as "we already had them arranged "

Also refused in house solicitor offer etc .

She still got the house

ACG

Some estate agents use it as a way to generate sales. It is not compulsory in any legislative way and infact it is probably against the estate agents act 19?? (1979 I want to say).

Estate agents do have a duty to ensure potential buyers are good for the money, but there is no definition of how that should be done. Chances are the vendor has signed a contract (without reading it) saying they want buyers to be qualified but it is unlikely the vendor has explicitly said they want potential buyers to see their Mortgage broker.

You could knock on and explain you have a DIP and proof of deposit but the agent is threatening to cancel your house viewing appointment if you do not see their broker. Only then will you know if it is the agent or vendor, but my money would be it is the agent.

LRmortgage

My guess is this is one of the corporate estate agents.

As mentioned previously, it is highly unlikely that the Vendor has insisted all people who want to view the house see the estate agents broker. Your DIP should be enough for them to be happy you are a viable potential purchaser.

Personally I tell them where to stick their mortgage appointment, however it depends how much you want this particular house and whether the agent will actually cancel your viewing or not. If they do, I’d definitely be knocking on the Vendor’s door to tell them that their Agent is an [insert your ending].

AnotherJoe

mrchuckbass wrote: »

Hello

Came across a house on Rightmove that I want to view. Called to set up a viewing, and was told I had to attend a mortgage appointment at their estate agents first, to prove I am financially qualified

I called up next day to cancel the mortgage appointment, and just keep the house viewing appointment, but I was told that if I wanted to cancel the mortgage appointment, I had to cancel the house viewing too, since the vendor wanted to ensure people are financially qualified. I told them that I already had a mortgage in principle, but they said the mortgage appointment was still required

Are they lying? I don’t have much experience of this (first time buyer), but my gut is telling me they are lying

From my perspective, I don’t want to attend the mortgage appointment because they will then know how much I can afford. They don’t need to know that information. I can afford much more than the asking price, but they don’t need to know that

Thanks!

Yep. They are lying. I dont however believe its a conspiracy to find out how much you can afford and bid the price up, its not that at all. The amount an extra few £k on the price makes to their sales comission is tiny. Note also that there are very stringent data disclosure regulations in place. Were they to tell the vendor you could afford more, the penalties could be severe.
Its to try and get commission by selling you mortgage and related products.

It is intensely irritating and no doubt they dress it up to the vendor to say they are checking your finances.

I think my POV would be, go in and waste a whack of their time. Go into detail, ask loads of questions, document everything very slowly, tell the, you are worried they are doing this to try and make you spend more money on the house than you wish to, give them a hard time about that,ask what assurances they can show you they wont, ask to see their GDPR documentation and the claims they make about client confidentiality. If (when) they tell its not to make you pay more, show them your MIP document and ask why that isnt sufficient. get them to document that.

Everything they give you to read, read it there and then, take your time. And then decline everything (unless of course they can do you a better deal) so apart from your time and the annoyance you have little to lose.

sheepy21

William H Brown (sequence) did this with us, we saw the broker. Him and the EA were so rude we decided to stuff the house and by through another EA that took us at our word

Thrugelmir

AnotherJoe wrote: »

It is intensely irritating and no doubt they dress it up to the vendor to say they are checking your finances.

Good way of weeding out timewasters. Wasting valuable time conducting viewings is costly to a business. People viewing houses are often econonical with the truth. Probably because they are the same flesh and blood as the much despised EA's.

middleclassbutpoor

The last time we bought, we were put through the same process.

We told the EA that I was sorted for a mortgage and could supply the proof of a decision in principle. They rolled out everything about their vendor insisting. We explained that it was a waste of their time as we wouldn't give permission to do anything other than ask me sufficient questions to establish the DIP we had was likely to proceed.

We were booked in to see their mortgage adviser.

At the appointment, he started to try and build some rapport with me and the wife. We just sat there straight faced, highly annoyed that we had been pulled in there. He tried to progress on to the regulatory documents before going into his fact find.

I stopped him and said that we were only here to tell him that we had a dip with the lender we had chosen at this time and that he had 10 mins to ask me any question which was relevant to assess my DIP was valid. He started to give me and my wife some spiel..

Again I had to stop him and he was clearly getting frustrated when I said this was not what we agreed to. He got the estate agent to come into the meeting and the EA was trying to blag the situation in saying that he had agreed with what I had said but said he did caveat that the adviser may need to do more.

It was at this point, I turned around and said, did you tell your Adviser that I am a fully qualified Financial Adviser and Mortgage Adviser who was also qualified in Equity Release and that my wife was a Compliance Manager who was also qualified in Financial Advice and Mortgage Advice..

The EA became very uncomfortable as the mortgage broker just didn't know what to say.

I asked whether there was anything else they needed to know? The adviser said not and we walked out.

Felt a bit of a **** for acting like that but they had really annoyed us by wasting our time.

Sanne

We had to have a call with their advisor but only after putting in an offer (were not told about this beforehand but really wanted that house).

Sent our AIP and all she did was put all numbers (income etc) I gave her into the Nationwide calculator to tell me we’d get enough (yeah, really? we know, we have an AIP for £50k more than needed!)

Anyway... EA asked later if they were able to help me get a better deal - nope, but then, she didn’t try either, just checked that we were given the same rate and that we’ve checked if putting down a slightly larger deposit results in a lower interest rate (LTV just over 80%).

Waste of time...