Offer accepted but EA refuses to take property off market

Emily_Joy

Offer was accepted by the vendor two weeks ago. Evidence of funds along with ID are provided to the EA by the buyer and the solicitor is instructed. The EA makes all kind of excuses and doesn't take the property of the market, although promises to do so every other day. The excuses are "it takes a few days to take it off Rightmove (how long does it take to put STC sticker on the window?). We are waiting for our legal compliance team. The person who deals with it is working from home and has problems accessing the system". At the same time the EA is calling repeatedly to suggest that the buyer uses their in-house mortgage broker and the solicitor they usually work with who is.

Any advice?

Sorry for the rant. I appreciate the EA is paid by the vendor and not by the buyer but the buyer finds the situation quite uncomfortable.

UnderOffer

Have you thought about getting a friend to contact EA and enquire about the home with the offer on it. Their response will alert you to how they are actually handling the house and whether they are advising potential viewers that it is SSTC. 

My own home took several weeks to be marked as “under offer”. Everything was going through as normal.  

gazfocus

I did as @UnderOffer suggested when we had offers on our house. I was actually quite annoyed with the results. Our house was advertised as ‘offers over’ and we ended up with 3 offers. One at the asking price, one at £1k over and one was £2K over.

I decided to ask a friend to ring the EA to request a viewing and my friend was told the house had sold so they weren’t doing any further viewings (I’d not accepted any of the offers at this point). 

I asked the EA to go back to the 3 offers and ask for best and final, and she pushed back saying the 2 lower ones were at their max and would only go back to the one that had offered £2K over. 

I quickly learnt that while many believe the EA works for the seller, they really just want the least amount of work possible. If they can put off updating a listing until they have several to do at once, they will do. 

Another thought is that maybe they’re using the listing as a tool to get others to enquire and then direct people to other houses. 

[Deleted User]

Just give them a deadline to do it, or you will pull out.

[Deleted User]

I don't think they took mine off until contracts were exchanged. They are vultures. It was funny really because they had not sold it in six months and nobody else tried to buy it. It appeared as "under offer".

Murphybear

I used to use Rightmove.  It doesn’t take several days to remove a property 

caprikid1

What has the estate agent agreed with the Vendor ? What did you agree as part of the offer ?

This is not uncommon, the offer may be lower than they really wanted , they may want a survey booked.

The excuses / lies may just be hiding their vendors instructions.

You have 2 options, 

1. Proceed at pace
2. Offer a deadline otherwise pull out.

At this moment in time you have not commited anything into the sale IE Paid for a survey, the seller may be waiting for real commitment before pulling it off rightmove.

This is far from uncommon but up to you really how you chose to deal with it.

Very common though where the vendor feels the offer is low but may be the best they can get in the current market. They often leave it on RM to see if anything better comes along.

twoLou

Have the agents confirmed it has definitely been removed from the market and no others are being shown around?
I would do as suggested before if not and say that you will be withdrawing your offer and looking at other properties if they do not confirm the above and mark it under offer.

Is it on with one of the large national companies or an independent agent?

I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be but apart from the above I’m not sure what else you can do.

Flugelhorn

Murphybear said:

I used to use Rightmove.  It doesn’t take several days to remove a property 

I guessed that might be the case - I was selling a property and was ankle biting the EA to get on with / change certain things (which they did very quickly - within hours it was all done and even a comp premium listing added in 

Jonboy_1984

Does the Estate Agents name begin with C by any chance?

Emily_Joy

Jonboy_1984 said:

Does the Estate Agents name begin with C by any chance?

Nope. It is a small local EA. From the face of the solicitor (also local) I see they are not thrilled by the prospective of dealing with them.