Survey and vendor changing locks/keys

TheJP

JohnBravo said:

TheJP said:

JohnBravo said:

I don't mind covering this £200 but this 2 weeks delay is a bit of a letdown. Any surveyor I check it will be at least 2 weeks if not more to the next available slot but I stick to the existing surveyor as I already paid him the 1st sum.

Why didn't they change those locks before the process has started?
It is suspicious and you may be right about someone unauthorized accessing it.

Maybe the squatter changed the locks? :-)

Or the agency gave the surveyor the wrong keys?

I don't think its suspicious at all, sounds like a council tenant moved out and they have changed the locks from the master system they use for all their owned properties to an individualised system not even the council can access after they sell to you. I see that as proactive in protecting your future asset.

Did the housing association know you were having a survey or did the EA just handle it, its unfortunate but don't see the HA at fault. I would want to know if the EA informed the HA about any site visits after the offer was agreed, if not then the EA was sloppy.

I know but the council tenant moved out long before the viewings so this was the right time to change the locks not after viewings. Their property was vulnerable to squatting until recently provided the master key is compromised - I reckon to the end of February, the tenant moved out end of last year)
If I was a HA I would want the master key back not to compromise other of my properties but they haven't asked EA for it.

Its an association, they wont get things done as quickly as you and i as i assume there will be a process chain to activate the change of locks e.g. approval, budget code, booking the locksmith etc.

I don't doubt the HA have the key back but they are now taking your property off their master key system. 

Ath_Wat

TheJP said:

JohnBravo said:

I don't mind covering this £200 but this 2 weeks delay is a bit of a letdown. Any surveyor I check it will be at least 2 weeks if not more to the next available slot but I stick to the existing surveyor as I already paid him the 1st sum.

Why didn't they change those locks before the process has started?
It is suspicious and you may be right about someone unauthorized accessing it.

Maybe the squatter changed the locks? :-)

Or the agency gave the surveyor the wrong keys?

I don't think its suspicious at all, sounds like a council tenant moved out and they have changed the locks from the master system they use for all their owned properties to an individualised system not even the council can access after they sell to you. I see that as proactive in protecting your future asset.

Did the housing association know you were having a survey or did the EA just handle it, its unfortunate but don't see the HA at fault. I would want to know if the EA informed the HA about any site visits after the offer was agreed, if not then the EA was sloppy.

 I can't see how anybody other than the housing association are at fault.  They were the only people who knew they were changing the locks; it was surely up to them to notify the estate agent that the keys they were holding didn't work any more.  The estate agent, once given a key, is not going to contact a vendor every time they plan to use it to ask "have you changed the locks?"

That said I doubt anyone is at fault to the extent that anything can be done about it.

JohnBravo

@Ath_Wat
I think this task is beyond the HA and their chain of processes. LOL

but they successfully stopped the surveyor from doing his job (e.g. finding some faults at the property) at least for now.

As we say it "too many cooks and there is nothing left to eat"

TheJP

Ath_Wat said:

TheJP said:

JohnBravo said:

I don't mind covering this £200 but this 2 weeks delay is a bit of a letdown. Any surveyor I check it will be at least 2 weeks if not more to the next available slot but I stick to the existing surveyor as I already paid him the 1st sum.

Why didn't they change those locks before the process has started?
It is suspicious and you may be right about someone unauthorized accessing it.

Maybe the squatter changed the locks? :-)

Or the agency gave the surveyor the wrong keys?

I don't think its suspicious at all, sounds like a council tenant moved out and they have changed the locks from the master system they use for all their owned properties to an individualised system not even the council can access after they sell to you. I see that as proactive in protecting your future asset.

Did the housing association know you were having a survey or did the EA just handle it, its unfortunate but don't see the HA at fault. I would want to know if the EA informed the HA about any site visits after the offer was agreed, if not then the EA was sloppy.

 I can't see how anybody other than the housing association are at fault.  They were the only people who knew they were changing the locks; it was surely up to them to notify the estate agent that the keys they were holding didn't work any more.  The estate agent, once given a key, is not going to contact a vendor every time they plan to use it to ask "have you changed the locks?"

That said I doubt anyone is at fault to the extent that anything can be done about it.

Ok so lets break it down a little bit, one department in the HA is handling the sale of the property and another department is handling the prep to hand the property over to new owners. 

The EA has keys to show interested parties around, they did an offer is made and the process begins (as above), the buyer then says they want to have a survey done, EA doesn't contact the HA about it (i can only assume the EA didn't) which means they aren't aware of the change in locks. The HA aren't aware of any more requests to enter the property so continue with the process of changing the locks which is probably their policy when selling a property.

My comment was surely the EA should seek permission from the vendor if the buyer can have a survey carried out which may have in turn meant that the new keys issued to the EA.

No one knows.

Ath_Wat

TheJP said:

Ath_Wat said:

TheJP said:

JohnBravo said:

I don't mind covering this £200 but this 2 weeks delay is a bit of a letdown. Any surveyor I check it will be at least 2 weeks if not more to the next available slot but I stick to the existing surveyor as I already paid him the 1st sum.

Why didn't they change those locks before the process has started?
It is suspicious and you may be right about someone unauthorized accessing it.

Maybe the squatter changed the locks? :-)

Or the agency gave the surveyor the wrong keys?

I don't think its suspicious at all, sounds like a council tenant moved out and they have changed the locks from the master system they use for all their owned properties to an individualised system not even the council can access after they sell to you. I see that as proactive in protecting your future asset.

Did the housing association know you were having a survey or did the EA just handle it, its unfortunate but don't see the HA at fault. I would want to know if the EA informed the HA about any site visits after the offer was agreed, if not then the EA was sloppy.

 I can't see how anybody other than the housing association are at fault.  They were the only people who knew they were changing the locks; it was surely up to them to notify the estate agent that the keys they were holding didn't work any more.  The estate agent, once given a key, is not going to contact a vendor every time they plan to use it to ask "have you changed the locks?"

That said I doubt anyone is at fault to the extent that anything can be done about it.

Ok so lets break it down a little bit, one department in the HA is handling the sale of the property and another department is handling the prep to hand the property over to new owners. 

The EA has keys to show interested parties around, they did an offer is made and the process begins (as above), the buyer then says they want to have a survey done, EA doesn't contact the HA about it (i can only assume the EA didn't) which means they aren't aware of the change in locks. The HA aren't aware of any more requests to enter the property so continue with the process of changing the locks which is probably their policy when selling a property.

My comment was surely the EA should seek permission from the vendor if the buyer can have a survey carried out which may have in turn meant that the new keys issued to the EA.

No one knows.

"surely the EA should seek permission from the vendor if the buyer can have a survey carried out "

No, not generally.  Generally that would be a given if the estate agent had been given a  key and asked to deal with everything. The buyer might need to make subsequent visits to the property for any number of reasons; the whole point of giving a EA a key is so the vendor doesn't need to be bothered with them. The estate agent doesn't know that anyone plans to change the locks, they couldn't. Information has to be pushed from source.

The most probable thing by far is that the vendor changed the locks and forgot to tell the estate agent.  The fact that they are a housing association is immaterial, except in as much as it makes it more likely to happen.  No big thing, just a pain for the OP.

JohnBravo

@TheJP
I agree with you on the basis that EA is a middle man and should be enabling (not disabling) things between parties and they failed in this regard. I reckon EA deals with individual sellers most of the time and they don't have a proper instruction how to deal with HA (or any other business) or EA is basically lacking of due diligence.

The surveyor has phoned them up and confirmed he is going to pick the keys.That was it. Should I expect the surveyor to tell me "Listen, there may be a problem entering the property if this is a council house, I had this in the past, it happens they change locks. Can you ask the agency to confirm/double check?"

It's one of these one-off things that you learn but then you have to wait another X years to come across it and most likely forget to keep an eye on it anyway.

Thrugelmir

Just one of those things that happens.  Trying to find someone to blame achieves nothing. 

Scotbot

user1977 said:

Surveyor charging £200 for not doing a survey is taking the pee somewhat.

No it isn't. The survey wasn't cancelled the surveyor turned up. Taking into account travelling time 2 hours of his time, so £200 is reasonable 

doodling

Hi,

From the point of view of the original poster, the HA and the EA are the same person (who I'll call the vendor) What appears to have happened is that the vendor has agreed to make the property available to the surveyor at a particular time and have failed to do so.

The next question is what was the agreement about making the property available and what is the contractual context around that?  Unless the original poster agreed to pay for access then it is not clear that there is any contract at all under which losses could be claimed (as we are still at the surveying stage then the overall purchase contract will not be relevant unless this was something like an auction sale).

If the vendor cannot be pursued then there is no legal avenue to get any money back.

Having said that, both the EA and HA should recognise that they have cost you money and might be prepared to make some kind of goodwill payment - I wouldn't bank on it though.

Norman_Castle

JohnBravo said:

Slinky said:

user1977 said:

Surveyor charging £200 for not doing a survey is taking the pee somewhat.

If it's half a day, or a day's work, depending on the size of the property, why should the surveyor lose out what s/he would have earned? It's not like s/he could rock up somewhere else and survey another property without an appointment.

I don't know how this could be avoided thought.

The agency thinks it has the right keys, it's kind of hard to double check if the keys are correct if the vendor is a housing association with hundreds of keys.

The agency has just came back that the vendor uses a master key across all their properties and eventually changed to independent keys.

Its easy for the agency to check if the keys they have work, they visit the property and try them. I wouldn't believe stories about master keys.