Estate agents asking for seemingly unnecessary information

Sarahspangles

chamberino said:

He wanted my full name including middle name, then my partner's full name and contact details.

1. Is there a genuine reason, whether for their benefit or mine, why they want to know our full names and current address and other similar info? Or anything else beyond basic contact details at the stage when we're just organising viewings.

Estate agents are paid commission on houses they sell. They need proof they introduced the eventual buyer to the seller to defend themselves from the seller claiming they found that buyer themselves - or that another agency did, where the seller is using more than one. If you walk past a house with a For Sale board, take a brochure from the agents shop, or see the house on Rightmove and call the agent to arrange a viewing then they can say their marketing on behalf of the seller made the sale.

So collecting your and your partner’s details is important to them, then the seller can’t say ‘Oh I know Chamberino through X and he happened to mention he was looking, nothing to do with the agency’ or ‘Yes I know Chamberino viewed, but I’m selling to someone else, nothing to do with your agency’ when the someone else is Chamberino’s partner. If the seller can persuade a buyer to go along with this and gets away with it they save the fees.

HampshireH

I am so glad someone raised the staff safety element (and Suzy lamplugh case). It's the first thing which crossed my mind.

Most organisations won't let their staff meet strangers without taking at least basic details of those these are meeting. This is common sense and I think it's really strange that it's even questioned.

Could you imagine. Estate Agent gets attacked and police ask who they were meeting so they can go straight to their home address and begin enquires. Agency replies oh we don't know we don't take their details we just send our lone workers to meet random strangers and don't ask any questions (aka we don't care about our staff).

Don't want to provide it, that's fine no viewings. OP says they just went through the same for renting so I really don't know why they would expect anything different.

Of course they will probably add you to their mailing list too but you can decline this 

GDB2222

The inevitable questions I get, apart from my home address, are whether my house is on the market and whether I want an appraisal. You can’t blame them for trying.

london21

They will need to do some due diligence otherwise could have random people just wasting their time.

eddddy

HampshireH said:

Could you imagine. Estate Agent gets attacked and police ask who they were meeting so they can go straight to their home address and begin enquires. Agency replies oh we don't know we don't take their details we just send our lone workers to meet random strangers and don't ask any questions (aka we don't care about our staff).

The problem with that theory is...

If somebody was contemplating abducting/attacking an estate agent at a viewing, they probably wouldn't give their real full name, partner's real full name and real contact details over the phone in advance.

They'd probably use some fake details instead.


(But if the estate agent was asking to see photo id before doing a viewing, that could be a plausible theory.) 

YoungBlueEyes

I thought they asked for your address so they can check you are a serious seller by looking up your house on RM (presuming you need to sell to buy the next one.)