Are Estate Agents Allowed to do this?

Evade

We've just managed to escape being stitched up on a house. After spending lots of time and money (and energy/stress) it became clear to us that the house we'd offered on suffered from subsidence and the agent/vendor were doing everything they could to cover it up - firstly, not disclosing the history until we'd had our survey done (previous subsidence claims/problems; house built on infilled land); then getting their own structural engineer in and lying (and not disclosing info) to them about the house history; then covering up problems such as internal cracks between our survey and their structural surveyor visits. It seems that the estate agent was aware of this and was aggressively trying to push the sale through regardless. We've now pulled out, the property is back on the market. I got my brother to call the agent as a prospective new buyer and ask why the previous sale fell through and they said it was the buyer's chain fell through (which is nonsense as we're cash buyers)... We know that a previous sale before our attempt had also fallen through, and were told by the agent that the previous buyer's circumstances had changed.

I'm keen to not let anyone else waste as much as we did, or worse, buy the house without doing a full survey - I'm glad we went the full hog and followed everything through, but it was like getting blood out of a stone!

I'm sure that CPR changes in 2014 is meant to prevent this behavior, but I'm no lawyer.

I'm also keen to somehow report the agent, but the Property Ombudsman doesn't seem to cover this stuff.

Anything else we can do?

eddddy

Evade wrote: »

Anything else we can do?

If you believe that the EA knew about the subsidence, but didn't say anything, you can make a complaint to the Property Ombudsman that the EA withheld material information (but you have to go through the EA's complaint process first.)

If the EA really did withhold the information, the Property Ombudsman might order the EA to cover your aborted legal costs.

Here's a couple of relevant extracts from decisions made by the property ombudsman:

A comment about a property with subsidence...

It should be noted that Agent B could be committing an offence for omitting information relating to the subsidence unless they were unaware of it due to the act or default of the seller who has hidden the fact, in which case the seller commits the offence.

https://www.tpos.co.uk/news-media-and-press-releases/case-studies/item/the-truth-and-the-cprs

And an EA that failed to mention details of a previous adverse survey (not subsidence related) was ordered to pay compensation of £500...

...it was clear that the Agent failed to disclose important information in relation to the adverse findings of the previous survey held on their file. I considered this to constitute ‘material information’ which Mr and Mrs B needed to make an informed transactional decision under the CPRs. I was, therefore, not persuaded that the Agent had acted in accordance with Paragraph 5h of the TPO Code of Practice and pointed out that the Agent’s failure had prevented Mr and Mrs B from making an informed decision as to the type of survey they wished to commission and, thereafter, whether they wished to proceed with the purchase of the property at the agreed price. I supported the complaint and made an award of £500.

Link: https://www.tpos.co.uk/news-media-and-press-releases/case-studies/item/cpr-s-case-2-damp-descriptions

ACG

Report them to trading standards/property ombudsman for:
1) Not advising it has had subsidence and still not advising people of it.
2) Telling lies about why the sale fell through.

Also might be worth plonking some review on Trustpilot/Google about the agents.

I see buyers who come across issues with the house after they have spent maybe £500-1000 on surveys and legal fees where it was no doubt obvious to the vendor and agent (but not necessarily to a naive first time buyer) there was an issue.

diggingdude

Get someone else to call up recording the call so you have evidence

Tahlullah

You have to seek and be granted permission to record a conversation I believe.

pinkshoes

WRITE to the EA stating that you pulled out of the house sale of XXXX property due to subsidence issues, and that you were not impressed to find them lying to another purchaser about why the sale fell through.

Tell them that if you discover the previous sale fell through for the same reason, then you will be taking them to court for deliberate misrepresentation, and that now that they are aware of the issues with this property then they need to represent it correctly to future buyers.

princeofpounds

Tahlullah wrote: »

You have to seek and be granted permission to record a conversation I believe.

Not the case, although it’s a common misconception because it’s somewhat true if you are a business recording phone calls. For individuals the law is more flexible.

Individuals are perfectly entitled to secretly record their own conversations for personal use, such as keeping a record. But if you release them to a third party and cause damages (in the legal sense, which is not the same as them just getting angry about it) to the recorded party, you could be vulnerable to a civil suit.

It’s a little bit more complex in terms of using that evidence in a legal sense. In a court you have to ask the court for permission to use the evidence (normally given if pertinent) and disclose it to the other party so they can defend.

How it applies to a private ‘arbitration’ process I am not sure. But I suspect it may be hard for the EA to claim legal damage has been caused by the recorder, as the damage would be caused by their very own comments, not the recording or distribution to the arbitrator.

The key for getting compensated here though would be for the OP to provide evidence (to the standard of arbitration, not criminal proceedings!) that the EA would have known about this beforehand, not that they continue to lie about it afterwards.

But I’d like to have a recording of them lying if only because it might make it easier to negotiate a settlement.

grumiofoundation

Tahlullah wrote: »

You have to seek and be granted permission to record a conversation I believe.

The act of recording a phone call is not illegal. You just can’t make the phone call public etc without the other persons permission.
For a phone recording to be used in evidence the court would have to give permission.

Davesnave

Tahlullah wrote: »

You have to seek and be granted permission to record a conversation I believe.

It was 37 years ago that I recorded a builder who was lying to me.

He didn't argue once he knew his words were literally in my possession and I had proof of the lie. The job was sorted very speedily.

Whatever the law at that time, making the recording worked where other attempts at persuasion had failed.

snilloct1957

Is there an insurance industry national register of houses which have had subsidence that required remedial repairs? I mean a website where you can type in an address and find out if any claims have been made against that property?

Naive Joe Public just asking...

Davesnave

snilloct1957 wrote: »

Is there an insurance industry national register of houses which have had subsidence that required remedial repairs?
Naive Joe Public just asking...

Insurance companies share information. A request for a quote might reveal a problem easily enough if it's been declared and the house has 'history.'