Auction House delayed valuation process resulting in us losing house

auctionflop

HI All,

Recently purchased a property at auction. We knew it needed work and so went for a refurbishment mortgage. The following happened and where do we stand?
Auction house changed our agent without letting us know. We had no communication with them until I emailed them giving out ( we had emailed the previous agent without replies) and I got a call from the new agent saying that the valuation was today and we missed it. (again no communication to us about this from the new agent).
New valuation for 2 weeks later.. went for that . Same agent messed up with the valuation again. Now we don't have the time to restart the process and so will lose our deposit and fees.  

Do we have any recourse against the auction house for the delays? and can we walk away and claim our money back. We have all the emails from them saying yes we messed up and proof that we had been trying to reach the agent previously. 

eddddy

auctionflop said:

Auction house changed our agent without letting us know. We had no communication with them until I emailed them giving out ( we had emailed the previous agent without replies) and I got a call from the new agent saying that the valuation was today and we missed it. (again no communication to us about this from the new agent).

Your post is a bit hard to follow.

What type of 'agent' are you talking about?  Why was the auction house appointing an agent for you?

Do you mean that you are applying for a mortgage, and the mortgage lender sent out a valuer today, but you didn't know, so nobody was at the property to let them in?

If so, who was supposed to let the valuer in?


And from a different perspective, what type of auction was it:

• A conditional auction - sometimes called "The modern method of auction"

• An unconditional auction - sometimes called "A traditional auction"

auctionflop

Thanks Edddy,

Yes its a bit flustered after the crap that went down.

Agent is the person we liaise with at the auction house. They are in charge of the access to the property. 

its a traditional auction to answer your question. The lender was to liaise with the auction house to gain access.
The first occasion the auction house agent for the property changed personnel and we were not informed and did not receive any communications' resulting in us missing the date for a valuation. We had to wait 2 weeks for this latest valuation and then this was messed up by the auction house and so no valuation took place. 

eddddy

Maybe one approach is asking the auction house to explain to the vendor that the auction house has 'messed up', so can they ask the vendor to extend the completion date by a couple of weeks?

Also tell your solicitor what you're doing, and tell them whatever reply you get from the auction house.


(As you probably realise, it's quite a big risk buying at a traditional auction when you don't have a definite mortgage offer. For example, it's still possible that the valuer will say the property isn't acceptable for a mortgage.)

youth_leader

I agree with @eddddy.  I sold at traditional auction and was not happy the buyer wanted the weekend to 'pass it in front of his underwriters' ... as well as asking for eight weeks for completion.  I went to auction because I thought I would be completing in one month.

user1977

Seems unusual that the surveyor and agent even need to make an appointment together - I'd normally expect surveyors to be trusted to borrow keys, especially for the sort of properties in auctions.

youth_leader

Agree @user1977, my house was empty.   I had asked the auction house to inform me if anyone was having a survey, but they didn't inform me and gave the surveyor my keys. I had only partially moved out.   I only found out he was there because I was renting about ten doors away, and walked past the house with my dog and saw his car. Creepy man I'd met when I was with the EA when he surveyed for a buyer, he asked me if he 'could go for a wee'.  Why he thought I had to know what he was doing in the bathroom god only knows!