Buyer sending enquiries via estate agent?

Lbuk

Hi. We accepted an offer on our house at the end of April and understandably the aim is to complete before the 30th June. Our conveyancer has a whole online system and I’ve provided all the information required including electrical certificates and fixtures/fittings lists and we were waiting for enquires.

However, the enquiries have come via the estate agent who has forwarded an email direct from the buyer. A lot of the questions have already been answered via the online system.
I don’t mind answering directly but I’m wondering why they’ve done it this way and if there is any reason that I shouldn’t? Is it just a time saving exercise?

[Deleted User]

Some byers consider the EA a friendly point of contact.

If the buyer has access to the online system, you might want to ask the EA to direct them there.

olbas_oil

Lbuk said:

 Our conveyancer has a whole online system and I’ve provided all the information required including electrical certificates and fixtures/fittings lists and we were waiting for enquires.

I think all conveyancers should be working this way, allowing you to see progress. Are you able to name the conveyancer and/or the online system that they are using?

skm1981

With our buyer, most of the communication was done through my estate agent.  It was quicker and easier, I found, and plus it meant making the estate agent work a little bit harder for their huge fee at the end of it!

Lbuk

olbas_oil said:

Lbuk said:

 Our conveyancer has a whole online system and I’ve provided all the information required including electrical certificates and fixtures/fittings lists and we were waiting for enquires.

I think all conveyancers should be working this way, allowing you to see progress. Are you able to name the conveyancer and/or the online system that they are using?

They were the estate agents default conveyancer. Premier Property Lawyers and the system they use is eWay.

Lbuk

Thanks for the replies everyone.

eddddy

Passing questions backwards and forwards via the estate agent is probably much faster than going via solicitors - so perhaps that why your buyers are doing it.

But the risk for the buyers is that nothing you say this way will form part of the contract, so they can't rely on it. So if something is important to them, they can ask via the estate agent, but they then need to get it confirmed via solicitors.

For example, they might ask via the estate agent...

1. What day are the bins emptied?
2. Do Deliveroo deliver in your area?
3. Was the new boiler installed by a qualified gas engineer?

They might want to get your answer to q3 confirmed via solicitors - so they can sue you if you've lied.

But they couldn't sue you over q1 and q2 if you only replied by email, because the email wouldn't be part of the contract.

Surrey_EA

Lbuk said:

olbas_oil said:

Lbuk said:

 Our conveyancer has a whole online system and I’ve provided all the information required including electrical certificates and fixtures/fittings lists and we were waiting for enquires.

I think all conveyancers should be working this way, allowing you to see progress. Are you able to name the conveyancer and/or the online system that they are using?

They were the estate agents default conveyancer. Premier Property Lawyers and the system they use is eWay.

The default conveyancer because they pay the estate agents a commission.

There is no other reason why anybody would recommend PPL, a truly awful outfit!

Soot2006

Our buyer sent loads of queries via the EA. Most of them came back via the solicitor later, but it actually made me more confident as I already knew the buyer knew and was OK with the responses. I copy pasted my responses to the EA into the email to the conveyancer.

btcp

If all depends on the questions, as per some earlier replies. If they ask if we know our neighbours and if they are friendly, I am happy to write a reply to EA. But if they ask me the SMs questions I already answered in one of the TA forms. Ie what’s included in the sale and when the heating was serviced I am kindly directing them to my solicitor. They will get all the answers there, plus copies of the documents where relevant. 

MaiTai

Premier Property Lawyers are by far and away the worst of the conveyancing sheds.
Over the years I’ve encountered innumerable issues with them causing unnecessary delays,losing paperwork and generally being very poor at what they are paid to do.
They may have the fancy technology but the majority of the staff are borderline incompetent.They do have a few good people but they are very much the exception rather than the rule.Problem is they sell it cheap,pile it high and struggle with anything that isn’t straightforward.

Absolutely hate dealing with any transaction involving them as you instinctively know from the outset that the whole process is highly likely to be fraught with difficulties.