Can an estate agent show my buyer new properties?

jezzer_72

Isthisforreal99 said:

jezzer_72 said:

saajan_12 said:

jezzer_72 said:

GDB2222 said:

jezzer_72 said:

GDB2222 said:

jezzer_72 said:

Hi all

Long story short… we accepted an offer on our property at the end of June. We had been really transparent with the buyer (we showed them around) in that we would need to find a property to move to before we could sell.

We had an offer accepted on a property about 3 after accepting our buyers offer. The seller also told us that they need to find a property and spoke directly with our estate agent to make sure our buyer was happy to wait, no issues were flagged to us at that point. About 4 weeks later the seller of the house we were had an offer accepted on took the house off the market (end of August) so we are back to looking.

Today, the estate agent that sold our house casually informed me that they had been showing our buyer properties and that they had viewed properties even though we accepted their offer.

Is the estate agent allowed or meant to be doing that? As far as I’m aware, we are paying the estate agent they ought to be working in our best interests and not the buyers. Taking our buyer to new viewings doesn’t seem to align with our interest and seems to be working in that of the estate agent.

I understand that it is up to the buyer if they want to view other properties as we are not in exchange but is the conduct of the estate agent correct? If not, what can I do about it as it’s a total lack of trust for me and makes me question if they had even marketed my house the best they could.

Any help would be appreciated. England

Your estate agent has to show some credibility with the buyer. Plus, it may be that by looking around your buyers come to the conclusion that, however slow you are being, they will stick with you.

Anyway, if I were your buyers, I'd also have given up on you by now. 

Can I ask why? 

We found a house 3 weeks after we accepted an offer, it was just that the seller decided they didn’t want to sell any more. On the same week (end of Aug) we had that house removed from the market the buyer of our house told to us about the survey and so we have booked in the contractors and undertaken the work in September. 

our solicitors are instructed from the first house we had our offer accepted.

I feel like we are pushing this forward on our end, the buyer had a the survey done on our house in August so it’s literally 1 month after being told of the issues it found. 

Granted we now need to find another house which isn’t easy… but we offered on a house on Monday but not heard if it’s been accepted or rejected yet as they had other viewings booked in. We also have 3 viewings booked in for this weekend already. 

Some people come to the forum for advice, whilst others come looking for validation of a particular point of view. You are obviously feeling a bit hard done by at the moment, as your efforts to make an onward purchase keep getting thwarted, and you have my sympathy for that. And the distinct lack of validation must be annoying. 

But I think you should accept that you are perhaps not being entirely reasonable either with your buyers or with your expectations of your agents. You keep saying that you pay the agents, but realistically you have not paid them anything yet, and they might be beginning to wonder whether you ever will. 

I fear that your buyers have lost patience, and they may well decide to buy a different house. Really, after 4 months, with no movement at all on their purchase, who can blame them? 

That’s the thing. There has been movement. We have been unlucky in our purchase for sure. 

We have addressed the issues pointed out in their survey which they told us about in September. We have informed the estate agent that we have had offers on other properties rejected at the moment but we have been viewing.

I would understand if there was nothing going on at all but we have progressed the issues from the survey, we initially found a house 4 weeeks after accepting their offer. We have had offers refused, we have been booking in viewings every week.

I’m not sure what else we can do other than buy any house or rent (which we have been open about from the start that we won’t do that).

Both can be true at the same time. You can be doing everything you can AND it can be too longer for most buyers. The end result is the buyer is still at the point of offering, as you need to view, get an offer accepted, go through surveys, searches, etc, the same as if they offered somewhere else. Except with you there's a chance that there's higher than usual requirements causing it to take 4 months whereas another seller may end up being faster. 

The buyer isn't pulling out, they're just looking for the fastest horse, which is normal. 
The agent is just dealing with an enquiry - if they don't, the result for you will be the same ie buyer looking elsewhere, it'll just be with other agents. 

Either you'll get an offer accepted very soon with one of the viewings this week and your buyer will likely come back, or you won't and have time to find another buyer. 

Basically none of this is personal, it’s just hte end result that matters. 

Thanks for your reply. I don’t think it’s personal but if you read the two responses above this, we suspect the agent has not communicated with the potential buyer as their communication to us has been full of a lack of information, wrong information or not knowing things that we have told them about via email and telephone. 

To be blunt, the only relevant facts are you are no further forward than you were in June, the buyer is (rightfully) getting twitchy. You seem in no rush to buy (you can view properties outwith weekends you know) and you want everything on your terms.

As others have said you are fortunate the buyer hasn't walked.

Thanks for your reply. As I’m sure you are aware, there are weekday appointments but due to where me and my partner work it’s not feasible to get to the viewings during the weekday unless they are early morning or evening. Where that has been possible we have viewed houses. 

I appreciate we are no further forward and as I said, I don’t have an issue with the buyer wanting to view other houses. 

It’s about the conduct of the estate agent. From this forum I’m getting the impression that I shouldn’t expect the estate agent to do anything to assist the sale except for do the viewing (most of which they didn’t do) and to call every now and again. Accuracy of information and giving accurate updates don’t seem a reasonable demands it appears to me. 

Bigphil1474

OP, you are getting a lot of duff advice and some complete nonsense on this post unfortunately. Seems people don't really understand what proceedable is and how EA's should behave.

You become proceedable when you have sold your house to a buyer - sold subject to contract (SSTC). It has nothing to do with whether you have an onward purchase in place, it's so that any onward purchases will know that you can proceed with the purchase of their property. Once they agree a sale with you, then they become proceedable, and so on up the chain until the chain is completed. 

If your house is off the market as SSTC, then your estate agent should not be showing your buyers other properties. No other EA's should either, but your EA doing it is taking the Michael. It's up to the buyers to either continue with the purchase of your property, i.e. wait for you to either agree to go into rented or find another suitable property, or for the buyer to withdraw so that you can put your property back on the market and they can go on looking elsewhere. Anything else is at best very unprofessional from the EA.

prowla

Bigphil1474 said:

OP, you are getting a lot of duff advice and some complete nonsense on this post unfortunately. Seems people don't really understand what proceedable is and how EA's should behave.

You become proceedable when you have sold your house to a buyer - sold subject to contract (SSTC). It has nothing to do with whether you have an onward purchase in place, it's so that any onward purchases will know that you can proceed with the purchase of their property. Once they agree a sale with you, then they become proceedable, and so on up the chain until the chain is completed. 

If your house is off the market as SSTC, then your estate agent should not be showing your buyers other properties. No other EA's should either, but your EA doing it is taking the Michael. It's up to the buyers to either continue with the purchase of your property, i.e. wait for you to either agree to go into rented or find another suitable property, or for the buyer to withdraw so that you can put your property back on the market and they can go on looking elsewhere. Anything else is at best very unprofessional from the EA.

How can other Estate Agents know they shouldn't be showing these buyers properties?

As for SSTC, the property is not yet sold and other buyers can make offers and the EA is legally obliged to pass them to the seller, even if the peoperty is "off the market".

Similarly the buyer is free to look at other properties and cancel due to surveys or whatever. (They may lose money on whatever fees they've incurred though.)

https://hoa.org.uk/advice/guides-for-homeowners/i-am-buying/what-does-sstc-mean/

Chief_of_Staffy

Bigphil1474 said:

OP, you are getting a lot of duff advice and some complete nonsense on this post unfortunately. Seems people don't really understand what proceedable is and how EA's should behave.

You become proceedable when you have sold your house to a buyer - sold subject to contract (SSTC). It has nothing to do with whether you have an onward purchase in place, it's so that any onward purchases will know that you can proceed with the purchase of their property. 

That's not correct. Proceedable means there is no barrier or delay to proceeding, and that you're ready to move forwards. Not having a property to move to, or not being able to vacate, means this criterion isn't fulfilled. Therefore, the OP is not proceedable.

Bigphil1474 said:

If your house is off the market as SSTC, then your estate agent should not be showing your buyers other properties. No other EA's should either, but your EA doing it is taking the Michael.

No estate agent in history has asked the question of a viewer, "Have you currently got an offer accepted on another property?" Because it's irrelevant. It would only become relevant, in most cases, once an offer was made.

saajan_12

jezzer_72 said:

Isthisforreal99 said:

jezzer_72 said:

saajan_12 said:

jezzer_72 said:

GDB2222 said:

jezzer_72 said:

GDB2222 said:

jezzer_72 said:

Hi all

Long story short… we accepted an offer on our property at the end of June. We had been really transparent with the buyer (we showed them around) in that we would need to find a property to move to before we could sell.

We had an offer accepted on a property about 3 after accepting our buyers offer. The seller also told us that they need to find a property and spoke directly with our estate agent to make sure our buyer was happy to wait, no issues were flagged to us at that point. About 4 weeks later the seller of the house we were had an offer accepted on took the house off the market (end of August) so we are back to looking.

Today, the estate agent that sold our house casually informed me that they had been showing our buyer properties and that they had viewed properties even though we accepted their offer.

Is the estate agent allowed or meant to be doing that? As far as I’m aware, we are paying the estate agent they ought to be working in our best interests and not the buyers. Taking our buyer to new viewings doesn’t seem to align with our interest and seems to be working in that of the estate agent.

I understand that it is up to the buyer if they want to view other properties as we are not in exchange but is the conduct of the estate agent correct? If not, what can I do about it as it’s a total lack of trust for me and makes me question if they had even marketed my house the best they could.

Any help would be appreciated. England

Your estate agent has to show some credibility with the buyer. Plus, it may be that by looking around your buyers come to the conclusion that, however slow you are being, they will stick with you.

Anyway, if I were your buyers, I'd also have given up on you by now. 

Can I ask why? 

We found a house 3 weeks after we accepted an offer, it was just that the seller decided they didn’t want to sell any more. On the same week (end of Aug) we had that house removed from the market the buyer of our house told to us about the survey and so we have booked in the contractors and undertaken the work in September. 

our solicitors are instructed from the first house we had our offer accepted.

I feel like we are pushing this forward on our end, the buyer had a the survey done on our house in August so it’s literally 1 month after being told of the issues it found. 

Granted we now need to find another house which isn’t easy… but we offered on a house on Monday but not heard if it’s been accepted or rejected yet as they had other viewings booked in. We also have 3 viewings booked in for this weekend already. 

Some people come to the forum for advice, whilst others come looking for validation of a particular point of view. You are obviously feeling a bit hard done by at the moment, as your efforts to make an onward purchase keep getting thwarted, and you have my sympathy for that. And the distinct lack of validation must be annoying. 

But I think you should accept that you are perhaps not being entirely reasonable either with your buyers or with your expectations of your agents. You keep saying that you pay the agents, but realistically you have not paid them anything yet, and they might be beginning to wonder whether you ever will. 

I fear that your buyers have lost patience, and they may well decide to buy a different house. Really, after 4 months, with no movement at all on their purchase, who can blame them? 

That’s the thing. There has been movement. We have been unlucky in our purchase for sure. 

We have addressed the issues pointed out in their survey which they told us about in September. We have informed the estate agent that we have had offers on other properties rejected at the moment but we have been viewing.

I would understand if there was nothing going on at all but we have progressed the issues from the survey, we initially found a house 4 weeeks after accepting their offer. We have had offers refused, we have been booking in viewings every week.

I’m not sure what else we can do other than buy any house or rent (which we have been open about from the start that we won’t do that).

Both can be true at the same time. You can be doing everything you can AND it can be too longer for most buyers. The end result is the buyer is still at the point of offering, as you need to view, get an offer accepted, go through surveys, searches, etc, the same as if they offered somewhere else. Except with you there's a chance that there's higher than usual requirements causing it to take 4 months whereas another seller may end up being faster. 

The buyer isn't pulling out, they're just looking for the fastest horse, which is normal. 
The agent is just dealing with an enquiry - if they don't, the result for you will be the same ie buyer looking elsewhere, it'll just be with other agents. 

Either you'll get an offer accepted very soon with one of the viewings this week and your buyer will likely come back, or you won't and have time to find another buyer. 

Basically none of this is personal, it’s just hte end result that matters. 

Thanks for your reply. I don’t think it’s personal but if you read the two responses above this, we suspect the agent has not communicated with the potential buyer as their communication to us has been full of a lack of information, wrong information or not knowing things that we have told them about via email and telephone. 

To be blunt, the only relevant facts are you are no further forward than you were in June, the buyer is (rightfully) getting twitchy. You seem in no rush to buy (you can view properties outwith weekends you know) and you want everything on your terms.

As others have said you are fortunate the buyer hasn't walked.

Thanks for your reply. As I’m sure you are aware, there are weekday appointments but due to where me and my partner work it’s not feasible to get to the viewings during the weekday unless they are early morning or evening. Where that has been possible we have viewed houses. 

I appreciate we are no further forward and as I said, I don’t have an issue with the buyer wanting to view other houses. 

It’s about the conduct of the estate agent. From this forum I’m getting the impression that I shouldn’t expect the estate agent to do anything to assist the sale except for do the viewing (most of which they didn’t do) and to call every now and again. Accuracy of information and giving accurate updates don’t seem a reasonable demands it appears to me. 

No, they should be updating and passing on information accurately, that's a valid complaint. The reason people aren't focusing on that is because its subjective and very hard to prove the expected vs delivered level of service. After all the updates in the world, an average buyer would still come to the same conclusion and look to view elsewhere (maybe another seller won't be in a chain, etc). 

Since you acknowledge the buyer may want to view other options, what difference does it make to you whether its with the same or another agent - if the same then at least they're still in contact and are more likely to listen to a positive update on your property if/when there is one. 
That's the bit we're disputing.. the buyer or agent's conduct in listening to an enquiry about another property. That's not to say the agent have otherwise given great service. 

jezzer_72

Chief_of_Staffy said:

Bigphil1474 said:j

OP, you are getting a lot of duff advice and some complete nonsense on this post unfortunately. Seems people don't really understand what proceedable is and how EA's should behave.

You become proceedable when you have sold your house to a buyer - sold subject to contract (SSTC). It has nothing to do with whether you have an onward purchase in place, it's so that any onward purchases will know that you can proceed with the purchase of their property. 

That's not correct. Proceedable means there is no barrier or delay to proceeding, and that you're ready to move forwards. Not having a property to move to, or not being able to vacate, means this criterion isn't fulfilled. Therefore, the OP is not proceedable.

Bigphil1474 said:

If your house is off the market as SSTC, then your estate agent should not be showing your buyers other properties. No other EA's should either, but your EA doing it is taking the Michael.

No estate agent in history has asked the question of a viewer, "Have you currently got an offer accepted on another property?" Because it's irrelevant. It would only become relevant, in most cases, once an offer was made.

a quick AI search states that you are generally considered proceedable if your current property is under offer subject to having your finances in place, though the chain needs to be strong. 

MeteredOut

jezzer_72 said:

Chief_of_Staffy said:

Bigphil1474 said:j

OP, you are getting a lot of duff advice and some complete nonsense on this post unfortunately. Seems people don't really understand what proceedable is and how EA's should behave.

You become proceedable when you have sold your house to a buyer - sold subject to contract (SSTC). It has nothing to do with whether you have an onward purchase in place, it's so that any onward purchases will know that you can proceed with the purchase of their property. 

That's not correct. Proceedable means there is no barrier or delay to proceeding, and that you're ready to move forwards. Not having a property to move to, or not being able to vacate, means this criterion isn't fulfilled. Therefore, the OP is not proceedable.

Bigphil1474 said:

If your house is off the market as SSTC, then your estate agent should not be showing your buyers other properties. No other EA's should either, but your EA doing it is taking the Michael.

No estate agent in history has asked the question of a viewer, "Have you currently got an offer accepted on another property?" Because it's irrelevant. It would only become relevant, in most cases, once an offer was made.

a quick AI search states that you are generally considered proceedable if your current property is under offer subject to having your finances in place, though the chain needs to be strong. 

quick AI searches typically have a decent chance of containing wrong or misleading information.

jezzer_72

jezzer_72 said:

Chief_of_Staffy said:o

Bigphil1474 said:j

OP, you are getting a lot of duff advice and some complete nonsense on this post unfortunately. Seems people don't really understand what proceedable is and how EA's should behave.

You become proceedable when you have sold your house to a buyer - sold subject to contract (SSTC). It has nothing to do with whether you have an onward purchase in place, it's so that any onward purchases will know that you can proceed with the purchase of their property. 

That's not correct. Proceedable means there is no barrier or delay to proceeding, and that you're ready to move forwards. Not having a property to move to, or not being able to vacate, means this criterion isn't fulfilled. Therefore, the OP is not proceedable.

Bigphil1474 said:

If your house is off the market as SSTC, then your estate agent should not be showing your buyers other properties. No other EA's should either, but your EA doing it is taking the Michael.

No estate agent in history has asked the question of a viewer, "Have you currently got an offer accepted on another property?" Because it's irrelevant. It would only become relevant, in most cases, once an offer was made.

a quick AI search states that you are generally considered proceedable if your current property is under offer subject to having your finances in place, though the chain needs to be strong. 

Most websites are saying the same. Having accepted an offer with the memo issued and a complete chain below you. 

https://www.pooletownsend.co.uk/blog/property-talk/2024/9/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-proceedable-buyer.aspx

https://www.willanliving.co.uk/demystifying-homebuying-jargon-what-does-a-proceedable-position-mean/

poseidon1

Perhaps the OP's time might be more productively spent researching and viewing properties, rather than battling with the  forumites here? 

jezzer_72

poseidon1 said:

Perhaps the OP's time might be more productively spent researching and viewing properties, rather than battling with the  forumites here? 

In my previous replies you’ll not that I have three booked in for tomorrow. I’ve got another 4 that I’ve contacted agents for today and I’m waiting for availability to view. As I said, I’m doing everything I can to view homes. 

Anyone is free to comment though so I’d appreciate it if posts were productive rather than sniping. 

As an update it has become clear today that the Estate Agent didn’t inform the buyer of my property that the works were complete. They can’t tell me when they told them and they have no notes that they can send detailing any discussion about it.