I believe I have evidence of an estate agent creating fake bids

jimbog

Jeepers_Creepers said:

I don't think I have misunderstood.

If the EA is knowingly - and it would be knowingly - adding false counter bids from the vendor, that would be gazumping (legal) but also counter to EA's regs. In fact, it would be criminal activity as I pointed out a few posts back.

Gazumping is when a deal has already been reached and when the transaction is at an advanced stage the buyer uses that fact as leverage for the vendor to accept a lower offer or else threatens to withdraw from the deal. That wasn't what happened here

SDLT_Geek

jimbog said:

Gazumping is when a deal has already been reached and when the transaction is at an advanced stage the buyer uses that fact as leverage for the vendor to accept a lower offer or else threatens to withdraw from the deal. That wasn't what happened here

Dear oh dear.  That is gazundering!

jimbog

SDLT_Geek said:

jimbog said:

Gazumping is when a deal has already been reached and when the transaction is at an advanced stage the buyer uses that fact as leverage for the vendor to accept a lower offer or else threatens to withdraw from the deal. That wasn't what happened here

Dear oh dear.  That is gazundering!

Opps! Yes, I stand corrected!

jimbog

It was never clarified if this was an auction or not. If it was then the EA (the 'auctioneer') has been 'bidding off the wall' which is quite legal

teachfast

What the OP alleges is called shill bidding, which is illegal in the UK (up to £5k fine).  They are right to be suspicious. 

SDLT_Geek

teachfast said:

What the OP alleges is called shill bidding, which is illegal in the UK (up to £5k fine).  They are right to be suspicious. 

Have you a source for this, please?

AdrianC

Literally the only difference here between a simple "The vendor's rejected your offer - do you want to increase it" and what the OP alleges is that they've apparently Seen A Book With A Name In It. A name that may or may not bear a resemblance to that of somebody who may or many not be somebody else entirely.

The OP could, at any stage, have said "Nope, I don't want to pay any more." They even say that they agreed to pay far more than they wanted because of their health condition - would the EA have known about that at all, let alone understood it well enough to leverage it as alleged? A condition that apparently led them to bully the EA to reveal confidential documents in breach of GDPR...

Sotts

Lonely_willow said:

Doozergirl said:

Lonely_willow said:

Penguin_ said:

Lonely_willow said:

hazyjo said:

What is it you hope to achieve?

It's worth what someone is willing to pay. Whether they invented a fake bidder or if the vendor had simply rejected your offer, you decided the house was worth what you paid.

I want to find out if the estate agent will face consequences for potentially creating fake bids. As I have seen the bidding book and I roughly remember the name on the bids below me matching the name of the vendor I feel there is scope for investigation.

Lets picture someone from the property ombudsman walks into the estate agent and asks to see the bidding book. Lets assume the other bidder name matches the vendors name. What does the estate agent tell the financial ombudsman then?

Did they force you to up your bid? No

Did you up your bid because you wanted the house? Yes

I have a mental disorder which caused me to make the mistake. A few months after purchasing the house I got around to doing the sums and released I overpaid. Ok it seems an estate agent is ok to create fake bids. The same is true for ebay etc.

I don't know what to say to this.  Obviously no one wants someone who is vulnerable to be taken advantage of, but there are good reasons why estate agents need houses to sell for the right price, not overinflated prices.  It's also pretty hard to hoodwink someone into paying too much because of the sheer volume of current and historic property sale information available to people.  

Buyers should have checks and balances in place.   Whenever a mortgage is involved, a surveyor is going to come in and given an assessment of the condition of the property and their own independent valuation of the property as security for lending.   If a house is genuinely overpriced, that is the point at which the mortgage valuation comes back low and the whole sale stands to collapse.  Agents don't want that.  They want an easy ride.  Trying to conclude property deals is often akin herding cats. 

House sales are also slow in our part of the world.  You have a lot of time between offer and completion to change your mind.  It's always available to you.  

Agents, on the whole, want a sale. That means getting the vendor and purchaser to agree, ideally at a price that they are both happy with.  One in three property sales collapse.  They have to try and set them up to succeed.   1% commission of nothing is a very small number.  

What due diligence did you do or have done for you?  Mortgage valuation?  Independent survey?  

I was a cash buyer, I did not need a survey. There was less risk in the estate agents eyes the surveyor would value the properly correctly.

I did get a survey done but the surveyor overvalued the property. He just basically took what I bid on it and subtracted £7k. He did not even really take into account similar property sales on the same street. If he had of done the percentages he would have seen he overvalued the house. These other house sales were within less than 3 months of my purchase.

You are confusing survey with valuation.   Valuation would be done by the lender if you were getting a mortgage.
A survey checks the condition of the property.  It doesn't tell you what it's worth.  Survey would be arranged by you to make sure there's no issues with the property.  You should get a survey regardless of being a cash buyer or not.

Next question. Was this an auction or a sale.  You keep mentioning bids. 

davidmcn

Sotts said:

Lonely_willow said:

Doozergirl said:

Lonely_willow said:

Penguin_ said:

Lonely_willow said:

hazyjo said:

What is it you hope to achieve?

It's worth what someone is willing to pay. Whether they invented a fake bidder or if the vendor had simply rejected your offer, you decided the house was worth what you paid.

I want to find out if the estate agent will face consequences for potentially creating fake bids. As I have seen the bidding book and I roughly remember the name on the bids below me matching the name of the vendor I feel there is scope for investigation.

Lets picture someone from the property ombudsman walks into the estate agent and asks to see the bidding book. Lets assume the other bidder name matches the vendors name. What does the estate agent tell the financial ombudsman then?

Did they force you to up your bid? No

Did you up your bid because you wanted the house? Yes

I have a mental disorder which caused me to make the mistake. A few months after purchasing the house I got around to doing the sums and released I overpaid. Ok it seems an estate agent is ok to create fake bids. The same is true for ebay etc.

I don't know what to say to this.  Obviously no one wants someone who is vulnerable to be taken advantage of, but there are good reasons why estate agents need houses to sell for the right price, not overinflated prices.  It's also pretty hard to hoodwink someone into paying too much because of the sheer volume of current and historic property sale information available to people.  

Buyers should have checks and balances in place.   Whenever a mortgage is involved, a surveyor is going to come in and given an assessment of the condition of the property and their own independent valuation of the property as security for lending.   If a house is genuinely overpriced, that is the point at which the mortgage valuation comes back low and the whole sale stands to collapse.  Agents don't want that.  They want an easy ride.  Trying to conclude property deals is often akin herding cats. 

House sales are also slow in our part of the world.  You have a lot of time between offer and completion to change your mind.  It's always available to you.  

Agents, on the whole, want a sale. That means getting the vendor and purchaser to agree, ideally at a price that they are both happy with.  One in three property sales collapse.  They have to try and set them up to succeed.   1% commission of nothing is a very small number.  

What due diligence did you do or have done for you?  Mortgage valuation?  Independent survey?  

I was a cash buyer, I did not need a survey. There was less risk in the estate agents eyes the surveyor would value the properly correctly.

I did get a survey done but the surveyor overvalued the property. He just basically took what I bid on it and subtracted £7k. He did not even really take into account similar property sales on the same street. If he had of done the percentages he would have seen he overvalued the house. These other house sales were within less than 3 months of my purchase.

You are confusing survey with valuation.   Valuation would be done by the lender if you were getting a mortgage.
A survey checks the condition of the property.  It doesn't tell you what it's worth.

No, it's pretty normal for surveys to include a valuation.

Greymug

pinkteapot said:

I’m surprised an agent showed you their records if it gave you personal details of other customers of theirs... I’d be more concerned about their data protection procedures.

which is why I think, if the OP keeps on charging, the estate agent will just say that the OP was super pushy and harassed him into showing them the records. I think OP is walking right into a trap and is willing to do so mostly based on strong suspicions.