Advice for dealing with estate agent

verytired11

The estate agent I am selling my house through is aggressive.  When negotiating the contract with him he was shady as he sent me sole selling rights and when I asked for sole agency he agreed, but when he sent the revised contract all he had done was change the heading of the clause from 'sole selling' to 'sole agency', and the wording of the clause itself was exactly the same!

In hindsight perhaps I should have found a different agent, but I sensed he would be good at his job in selling my house (which has proved correct as he found me a good buyer within a week) and other agents in my area had even more dodgy contracts (eg fee payable for finding a 'ready, willing and able buyer').

I ended up amending the wording of the contract to make it a more acceptable sole agency type clause because he said that he didn't have any sole agency type clauses!!

Anyway, I am only at the start of the process and already I am finding interactions with him difficult.  He interrupts me all the time, is patronising, doesn't listen and is quite aggressive in the way he contradicts or rudely ascribes random personality characteristics to me ("You're not the type of person to do that").  He doesn't respond to my emails and ignores my calls if there's nothing he needs from me.  He put me under intense pressure to accept within hours the first offer that came in and before all the viewings were completed by telling me how unappealing my house was (after 25 viewings over 2 days, all booked within days of going on the market).

 I know that estate agents are generally aggressive and shady, but I was expecting the agent being paid by me to be a bit politer and also to at least complete all the viewings and wait to receive all the offers before pressuring me to accept one.

Am I hoping for too much and what advice would you have for dealing with him?  Should I try to communicate via email to keep an audit trail?  What have your experiences been?  Any advice of how to manage my agent very welcome!

AdrianC

He's found you a "good" buyer, at a price you were happy to accept, within a week.

Is the chain complete, and the memorandum of sale issued?

Then what else do you need to communicate with him over?

It's all up to solicitors now.

UnderOffer

So you’ve accepted an offer you are happy with? Or are you wanting to remarket? Follow up any telephone calls from him in writing via email, ie. thank you for phoning me today to discuss...... XYZ, this is to confirm 123.

Keep comms to a minimum and just keep your fingers crossed that the sale progresses to completion. 

verytired11

AdrianC said:

He's found you a "good" buyer, at a price you were happy to accept, within a week.

Is the chain complete, and the memorandum of sale issued?

Then what else do you need to communicate with him over?

It's all up to solicitors now.

Thanks for your response - I think it has clarified what I am anxious about.  The buyer is good in the sense that they are not in a chain and offered the asking price.  However, the agent pressurised me to accept the offer before the viewings were completed and with 25 viewings in 2 days there may have been higher offers.  Now I am paranoid that the agent pressurised me with this buyer because of some dodgy reason.  I have tried to find out more about the buyer eg is it a private buyer - but the agent got really evasive and aggressive at this point and doesn't seem to know anything about the buyer and doesn't seem to want me to know anything.  I am worried that it might be a developer who is going to negotiate down the price after survey.  Is it usual to know more about a buyer other than their name?   I feel like I want to know more about who they are.

teachfast

Yes, you have every right to ask these questions. Sounds like he is hiding something to me. 

AdrianC

Name and address are on the memorandum of sale. Have a google, if you fancy doing a bit of sleuthing.

But... does it really matter?
Is a developer any more likely to renegotiate than a private buyer? They're certainly less likely to be flaky than an FTB, worrying about nothing. And will you accept any renegotiation attempt anyway?

LAD917

In fairness to the estate agent, an asking price offer from a chain-free buyer within days of going on the market is a dream outcome.  His attitude may well be, "don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

Is the buyer rushing to beat the stamp duty holiday?  If so, every day counts at this point.

Agents do need to be careful about disclosing too much about buyers, due to (among other things) fair housing laws, but I would expect an agent to give me some confidence that the person is a serious buyer, known to them for X period of time, etc.  I don't care who they are or what they intend to do with the property, as long as they're serious and have thought through the purchase.

NameUnavailable

So you're unhappy with having a chain free buyer who has offered you the full asking price?

The answer then is that you phone the agent, say you want 5/10/20K or whatever more and if the buyer isn't happy to pay that then they need to get remarketing.

It's that simple really.

verytired11

AdrianC said:

Name and address are on the memorandum of sale. Have a google, if you fancy doing a bit of sleuthing.

But... does it really matter?
Is a developer any more likely to renegotiate than a private buyer? They're certainly less likely to be flaky than an FTB, worrying about nothing. And will you accept any renegotiation attempt anyway?

There's no address on the memorandum of sale, only the solicitor's address!  And not even a first name, just an initial. 

doingitanyway

verytired11 said:

There's no address on the memorandum of sale, only the solicitor's address!  And not even a first name, just an initial. 

I wouldn't like/trust that either.

LAD917

The memorandum for my recent sale also only included initials for both parties, and did not include addresses other than the property address.  For my recent purchase (different agency), it listed my name, but not my address; for the vendors, only "Mr and Mrs" and no address.  I don't think there's anything "off" about it.  It's good practise to "minimise" personal data exposure given data privacy laws.

It's really none of my business where my buyer lives, or where my vendors (who did not live at the property) live.