Buying house - agent aggressive and not telling truth, what can we do?

badmemory

HappyHarry said:

Is it possible that the vendor is in very poor health, and the family and / or agent are concerned that if the house does not sell soon then it might be tied up in probate for a long time?

I suspect that this is correct & the lady is either in a care home or hospital not an actual rental property.  To be blunt this is not your concern.

theartfullodger

Aggressive and not entirely truthful is IMHO what one should expect from an estate agent (sometimes you get a nice surprise). Simply be polite and calm, deal via solicitors with vendors.


Agents work for seller, not you, and want their commission.  Part of the system, sorry.

Good luck!

Grizebeck

Ignore the agent from now on they are an irrelevance

Slinky

My immediate thought was what edddy said. There's a sales target that needs hitting. Probably every other SSTC house on their books at the moment is also getting the same pressure.

Console yourself with the pressure being lifted come 1st October. EA will probably still be sulking but less aggressive.

Bonniepurple

Could you possibly pop over and chat to the neighbours?  See what’s going on?  If the vendor is still there, I would then make a formal complaint to the estate agents, right up to the CEO or most senior person and say that you have been bullied by X, that they have pressurised you and, as a result, you will not be communicating with them from now on.  You will only communicate with the solicitor.  If it is to do with commission, I suspect that that will start the grovelling process.

RHemmings

edmor said:

My partner spoke to our agent about the matter, explained the position and then the agent sent an email to the lawyer which absolutely misrepresented everything my partner said. We emailed to challenge this. 

I wonder whom else the agent has been misrepresenting the situation to, and what the vendors are being told. 

Grumpy_chap

edmor said:

We’re buying a chain free Victorian property from an older lady who is moving out for health reasons.

Survey and searches have identified quite a lot of issues incl damp, new roof, rewiring needs and so forth but we’re quite committed to the property. Offer accepted very end of June 

We asked for some money off (£10k) as we’ve uncovered about £25k of work. This which was rejected - altho we’ve sucked it up as the accepted offer was fair.

edmor said:

I would just say that the property blurb stated ‘meticulously maintained’ (!) and the house is north of £800k in London. We had thought work was primarily cosmetic, it’s priced fairly for the area but I equally wouldn’t say we under offered.  

The EA's comments in the marketing really mean very little.  "Meticulously maintained" is a meaningless term.  Perhaps you read it as "everything perfect".  Perhaps the EA just meant it to mean that the current owner is house proud.

You seem to be saying that the price you agreed for the property is fair, even with the work that is required.

It rather sounds as though this is a veteran lady who has lived in that property for 50 years (or whatever) while she raised her family there and is now moving out to something more suited given her health and age.
It's a Victorian property.
When you viewed the property, did it match the "everything perfect" interpretation of "meticulously maintained" or was it all rather dated and 1970's / 1980's?
If the latter, then the need to re-wire is likely to a lay-person.
It may also have been possible to see that the roof was not in great shape if the survey has identified "new roof required".

It rather sounds as though your request for the reduction in price was opportunistic.  You have accepted that price is fair anyway.

Perhaps the EA is being pushed by the vendor (or family) to either bring this to a successful conclusion or re-market.

anselld

Whilst I agree with others the agent is an irrelevance at this stage in the process, OP you do seem to be proceeding at a relaxed pace given that offers were accepted in June.  Most serious buyers would be keen to proceed as quickly as possible, not ridiculous deadlines but a respectable pace.  You seem to be dragging things out, especially as you are going to want six weeks between exchange and completion then you should at least get to exchange asap.  Whilst I would not accept the agents attitude I can understand his frustration and it may well reflect the view of the vendor and/or her family.

daveyjp

These issues are never down to just one side not acting, at the momemt the agent has adopted a bullying approach, but rest assured there will be issues on his side that still need resolving.

The way to deal with it is for you or your solicitors to start requesting information on outstanding issues from the agent/seller solicitor and keep them busy.  You then need to be in a position to respond to them quickly as they raise queries, but if price is now agreed getting to contracts shouldn't be difficult.

ThisIsWeird

edmor said:

TLDR- we’re buying a house and the agent is being quite aggressive and I don’t think wholly truthful. What can we do?

The full story - We’re buying a chain free Victorian property from an older lady who is moving out for health reasons.

Survey and searches have identified quite a lot of issues incl damp, new roof, rewiring needs and so forth but we’re quite committed to the property. Offer accepted very end of June and we made clear from outset that we were in rental and needed 6 weeks notice to exit it. 

Throughout the process the agent has been quite dismissive of any concerns and just tried to push sale through, querying the need for any further survey ie of electrics etc. We asked for some money off (£10k) as we’ve uncovered about £25k of work. This which was rejected - altho we’ve sucked it up as the accepted offer was fair.

Suddenly in the last two weeks the agent has gone absolutely beserk beyond previous pushy emails and started spamming us and our lawyers with emails calls and voicemails to push the sale through. On Monday we got an email saying they were aiming for exchange and completion on 30 September and the vendor has moved into rental property in expectation - bear in mind we’ve not seen a contract yet and legals are still ongoing and we had absolutely no knowledge of any targeted date for exchange let alone completion. 

My partner spoke to our agent about the matter, explained the position and then the agent sent an email to the lawyer which absolutely misrepresented everything my partner said. We emailed to challenge this. 

We then spoke to our lawyers who pushed back on our behalf and then we recieved some of the most aggressive emails ever from the agent and regional sales manager which involved the partner of the law firm getting involved in the chain.

I honestly feel we cannot continue with this agent and the transaction is about to break down. I also worry for the vendor - I think they are agressivrly pushing an older lady to get the sale asap, if she’s truly moved to rental property I have no idea why as we’re weeks from exchange or completion.

Is there any way we can ask for the vendor to re market with a new agent or formally complain to a trades body?

Lots of emotive, possibly over-emotive?, terms in your post, Edmore, and it's hard for us to judge whether they are as you say. If you'd like to post some examples of 'most aggressive ever', or 'going absolutely berserk', or 'spamming', or being less than dishonest, then we may be able to judge better, but it might be best to simply collate these for an official complaint after you have bought the house.

Meanwhile, all you need to do is to keep your eye on the prize, deal only via your solicitor, ignore all the BS from the EA - unless they actually ask you something reasonable - and ensure you are not causing any holdups.

Once you've moved in - good luck! - then make a cuppa and write out the official complaint, copying in all the messages sent, and describing any verbal comments. Enjoy.