Lied to about “cash buyer with no chain” .

Slinky

BikingBud said:

newsgroupmonkey_ said:

Just as an aside, you have a tenant in your house, not a lodger.

There's a huge difference, particularly if the tenant doesn't want to leave at the end of the term. It could take 6 months or more to evict them.

But they've moved out so a moot point.

He's got some new ones moved in

helzbelz1984

Thank you all so much for your suggestions. To answer your questions , yes I called the estate agent and my solicitors at least once a week to ask why the sale didn’t seem to be progressing and was told that the process is especially slow for everyone atm. Another strange thing that happened is that our EA initially told us that the buyer wasn’t planning to get a survey done. We thought this was strange , but then out of the blue , just when we thought we were ready to exchange , we received a text from the EA telling us the survey was getting done the next day! The survey came back and we agreed to reduce the price down by 3k. We filled out all the contract forms (eg TR1 etc) for the second time , and waited for another couple of months with no news. It was then that I decided to do my own detective work and found that the buyer did in fact have a house for sale. 

Anyway we think the house will be difficult to sell in the next few months without reducing the price by 10k . We’re willing to do that as the increase mortgage rates will likely outweigh the 10k loss , but we’re waiting for confirmation from the EA that they’ll refund their fees if the house doesn’t sell for within 10% of the ORIGINAL asking price (not the reduced price). 

If the house doesn’t sell then I’d want a refund from the EA, plus I’m considering taking them to a small claims court to cover at least the cost of solicitor fees. 

Does anyone know whether taking the EA to a small claims court would be a worthwhile option ? To emphasise (as I realise this is a very complicated situation!) , my gripe isn’t that the sale fell through - I know this is always a possibility- it’s that we accepted an offer, rejected other offers, and lost potential viewings/offers, based on false information that the EA failed to uncover.

user1977

It's still not clear from what you've told that the EA had actually failed to check the buyer's position. Like I said above, somebody could have enough cash (and have proved it) but still change their mind about whether they want to buy without selling, or without getting a mortgage.

lookstraightahead

What about if the buyers have enough cash in the bank and then half way through decide they want to sell the house they have first instead?

im not saying that happened, but scenarios can change daily. Sellers break promises all the time often after surveys etc. what if your lodgers hadn't moved out? 

gwynlas

I beleive that you should engage another agent who will take more interest in your sale. A 10k reduction makes no difference to buyers who are looking at properties upto 200k knowing that they can offer less. Your 190k might attract similar lower offers.

helzbelz1984

user1977 said:

It's still not clear from what you've told that the EA had actually failed to check the buyer's position. Like I said above, somebody could have enough cash (and have proved it) but still change their mind about whether they want to buy without selling, or without getting a mortgage.

The truth is we actually don’t know whether or not the EA had failed to check the buyer’s position, or whether he had checked but didn’t communicate his findings to us. When I found out that her house was up for sale he said I must be mistaken because she’d already sold her house (but then quickly recommended we withdraw our acceptance of her offer ,leading me to believe that he knew I was right).
But it does seem as though she was relying on the sale of her house in order to buy ours & not the case that she’d just changed her mind - for e.g after we withdrew the acceptance of her offer I contacted her directly to explain and apologise, and she replied to say that she’s also sorry for how it’s turned out and that she still wants to go ahead with the sale but has been let down by her buyers. 

helzbelz1984

lookstraightahead said:

What about if the buyers have enough cash in the bank and then half way through decide they want to sell the house they have first instead?

im not saying that happened, but scenarios can change daily. Sellers break promises all the time often after surveys etc. what if your lodgers hadn't moved out? 

Yes, good point, that could be the case. But should we not have been told if she'd decided to wait until her house had sold first?
Re. the lodgers, it wouldn't have really mattered if they hadn't have moved out - we're 'live in landlords' and so always had a place to stay in our other house anyway . 

jonnydeppiwish!

Really unsure what you actually want from this. Your buyer probably was a cash buyer but circumstances changed where they could no longer afford to pay cash.
As for a survey, not everyone gets one done. I certainly didn’t on my last purchase.
Theres no sale until you’ve exchanged and completed, unfortunately that’s part of the buying and selling of a home in  England 

saajan_12

helzbelz1984 said:

Hi , I’m looking for advice re. house selling and estate agents. We put our house for sale in June &, within the first week ,we had 6 viewings and of these we had 2 offers above the asking price. The offers were similar , price-wise , but as one of the buyers was (supposedly!) a cash buyer with no property to sell and no chain, we accepted her offer. - what did the EA tell you at the time about their proof of deposit, mortgage AIP, etc? 
We’re also not in a chain as we own another property in another city that we rent to lodgers and so we planned to move there. Given that there was no chain etc , we thought it would be a quick sale and so moved everything to our other house. Our lodgers moved out and so we were paying for both mortgages , bills etc . It was expensive but we thought we could just about manage it for couple of months because our estate agent and solicitors assured us that our sale wouldn’t take long . - well they can never really assure you of that (with any credibility at least..). The EA would have no idea about the legal progress, and all sorts of hurdles can come up - legal, change of circumstances, change of mind, etc. So any actions you take in anticipation of the sale should be something you can sustain for 6+ months. 
Anyway things dragged on for months and after doing my own detective work , I found out that our buyer actually DID have a house to sell and that it had only just been reduced in price at the beginning of October ! Her estate agent  said that she had had a buyer but they’d  pulled out in May - ie before she put the offer on our house. Our estate agent said  she didn’t know her house sale had fallen through (which I don’t believe for a second obviously)! - key question is where did the EA think the buyer's deposit was coming from at the outset.. if the buyer had it in cash, then they may not have known that the buyer would change their mind and insist on selling a property tied to the transaction. 

So we put our house back on the market but ofc no one really wants to buy a house at the moment - we’ve had hardly any viewings and our estate agent has recommended we reduce the price by 10k (the house was previously valued at 200k so 10k is quite a difference!). I’ve made a formal complaint to the estate agents and am hoping to get our fees refunded especially if we can no longer find a buyer . 
If they won’t refund us then I’ll go to the property ombudsman, but is there anything else we can do ?- how are you paying your EA - is it a fixed upfront fee, or conditional on getting a sale? 
Do estate agents have a legal obligation to conduct financial checks on buyers ? - they are supposed to somewhat look into affordability, MIP, deposit etc, but they're reliant on what the buyer tells them about their plans, and detailed checks would be done by the solicitors. 
We’ve now got a lodger back in our other house to help cover some (not all) of the costs of bills etc , - are you living in the mortgaged property? If so, its the 'lodger' really a tenant? Could be difficult to evict if so, as well as all the other requirements..
but the mortgage for the house we’re selling ends in March & so I’m getting desperate to sell quickly to avoid the extortionate interest rates. However we also can’t really reduce the price of our house yet b/c the agents said that if we change the price then this would void their money back guarantee policy! - what policy? Quote the wording if you're unsure..
Feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place - any advice would be very much appreciated! Thanku so much !

Comments in line.. make sure you're focusing on the important bits though. If the buyer's situation has changed, then you may need to remarket or wait that out. The EA fee shouldn't be the driving force. 

eddddy

helzbelz1984 said:

but we’re waiting for confirmation from the EA that they’ll refund their fees if the house doesn’t sell for within 10% of the ORIGINAL asking price (not the reduced price). 

Are you talking about Purplebricks' "Money Back Guarantee" scheme?

They discontinued that scheme back in July 2022, so the terms are no longer on their website. 

But if that's the scheme you mean, from what I recall, you're misquoting the terms. You get your money back if there are no offers of 90% or more of their valuation.   

You said you had 2 offers over asking price - so that "Money Back Guarantee" wouldn't apply.


And judging by comments on this forum, Purplebricks seem to have quite a poor reputation for sales progression. Once you've received a 90% offer, they're fee is safe. So perhaps they are not especially motivated to do a good job of financially evaluating the buyer or chasing the buyer - because it won't earn them any more money.


Or maybe you're talking about a different estate agent with a different scheme?