Estate agent ID Check charge for House purchase

Myci85

The EA I experienced doing this had the cheek to try and get us to pay for the ID check before we'd even had our offer accepted. When I pointed out that I wasn't prepared to pay money out when the offer may be declined anyway, they told me it would still be worth us paying as then if we went for a different property through them we'd be ahead of the game. I can only assume they get commission from these outside ID check companies or something, as I'm aware that the companies then try and sell you various products once they have your details.

(I refused to pay, offer was not accepted, and I consciously avoided looking at any other properties through that agent.)

Tabieth

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82091958#Comment_82091958

I disagree. A fee of this amount is an utter trivial amount when buying a property. Buying is stressful enough without choosing to make an issue of something so minor. And why? The most that can be gained is getting the fee back. The worst that can happen is it threatens the purchase. I’d choose to focus my energies elsewhere.

MeteredOut

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82092041#Comment_82092041

Why? Because it is simply wrong to be expected to pay fees out of the blue, to a party who is not providing a service to you.

The only way I'd pay is if the house was my dream home that I would have paid more for in order not to lose.

Tabieth

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82092711#Comment_82092711

I think we’ll have to agree to disagree. My view remains that when spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on buying a property, it is really not worth the hassle of quibbling over an additional fee of around £40. Life is too short and I prefer to pick my battles.

MeteredOut

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82092734#Comment_82092734

I also like to pick my battles, but the difference is that this is one I would pick. Maybe I am petty afterall 😀

martindow

I agree that it goes against the grain to pay this when it should be included, even though it is a trivial amount compared to the cost of a house. But, you are risking losing a house that you are interested in by making an issue of it.

What everyone should do who has paid this, is to leave reviews for the agent once everything is done, down-rating them specifically for this issue. The hope is that if they get enough bad feedback they will drop charging and maybe other agents will proudly announce that they are not making prospective purchasers pay this. If they start to see that it is annoying purchasers and perhaps putting people off buying their houses they will make a commercial decision that the income stream is outweighed by the poor perception it gives.

PluggedIn

I'm in the process of buying a property. It's a while since my last foray into the buying/selling experience and it has changed a lot. The scandal of multiple so-called AML/PoF checks is very evident. Why should I pay 2 different entities (selling agent and my solicitor) in the same purchase chain? Every sale/purchase needs a solicitor, so why does the selling agent need to prove my financial position using a contracted company that charges for the privilege? In the old days, it was enough to prove your funds directly to the selling agent and this was free. If you are unlucky enough to have a few failed attempts to purchase a property, then it's a new fee each time. These third party charges may be small but it's a new and unnecessary cottage industry to milk the buyers.

The AML checks are also part of this process. While it may be a legal requirement for solicitors and agents to prove where your funds came from, in short they can't because it is too complicated in most cases. Tracking your financial movements back several years (perhaps from an earlier sale) is almost impossible. No-one keeps large sums of money in the same place over long periods of time. You will probably have moved it through many savings accounts and perhaps bought and sold assets such as cars. The agents/solicitors know that what they charge for this so-called AML check cannot possibly cover the effort required to prove that your money is 'clean' (they admitted this to me). So it's simply a meaningless tick-box exercise that puts additional unnecessary costs onto the buying process. I guess the Govt wanted to generate a new industry of tick-box companies claiming to provide this important legal step in buying a house. What is the point?

RelievedSheff

What is the point?

Buying a house?

If you want to buy the house on with an agent that does these checks then you have to follow their processes.

MeteredOut

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82174453#Comment_82174453

Do you though? If it was a house i was willing to lose, I'd 100% push back and get either the estate agent or the seller to pay it, or leave my offer on the table and look elsewhere. No way I'd be paying a sellers estate agent anything unless it was my dream house.

user1977

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82174453#Comment_82174453

You don't have to pay for their processes though.