Estate Agent - Sharp Practice?

whippet

While I know the reputation that EAs have isn't great the world over, however I would like to think i'd give anyone the benefit of the doubt...

At the moment I think I am being shafted by an EA while trying to buy a house and was wondering if anyone knows if something can be done of if the EA is acting contary to any set of standards.

I had made an offer on a house 6 months ago and stuck to my guns (I believed the price to be correct) .. the EA never said the offer was accepted or rejected, citing issues with the vendor's circumstances etc.

Eventually, I called the EA and said we were out of the picture and to let the vendor know.

Within a week I got a call to say that the vendor was willing to accept our offer. I said great, but we'd have to go through the whole mortgage application again (letter of offer for the banks only stay live for 3 months now!) but subject to survey and renewed approval from the bank we were happy to close and offered a booking deposit.

Was told not to worry about booking deposit, I updated the EA a few days later to say approval would be another 48hrs away to be told that a new bidder arrived on the scene offing 'cash' two grand above my offer .. spinning a great yarn as to the type of bidder.

I decided I didn't want to get in to horse trading and my offer was my offer as it had been for six months (partially not believing the EA that any other offer was on the table) .. and was walking away again.

Subsequently I have discovered that there is indeed another party interested (may have a connection to the EA .. actually I have been informed is a close friend / assoc of the EA) .

I decided to offer a couple of quid extra and was willing to put down the deposit immediately to be told by the EA that it wasn't an option as the other buyer would match my offer and is a 'cash' buyer and the fact we have to get bank valuation etc done it boils down to time frames not price.

I bit the bullet and contacted the vendor directly and it turns out that the EA has been economical with the truth all along and our original offer was never put to the vendor, it was only put to the vendor two weeks ago.

What I really feel is happening is that the EA had an interested associate all along and we were only there to set a low offer price after months of no interest and as soon as the vendor accepted the offer this assoc drops in and steals the deal.

Is this practice (if can be proven) illegal or even contary to any professional code of ethics? At the moment from a number of different sources I have plenty of actual information as to what is going on and have a direct line of communication with the vendor .. I am sure of my information and regardless of the outcome with the sale I would like to pursue the EA's actions further

TheDriver

TBH is stereotypical of EA practices that I hoped were a thing of the past but obviously not.
I don't know what to do except maybe contact the association to make a complaint? Does anyone else have similar stories about this guy? Confront him about it?

killers1

whippet wrote: »

While I know the reputation that EAs have isn't great the world over, however I would like to think i'd give anyone the benefit of the doubt...

At the moment I think I am being shafted by an EA while trying to buy a house and was wondering if anyone knows if something can be done of if the EA is acting contary to any set of standards.

I had made an offer on a house 6 months ago and stuck to my guns (I believed the price to be correct) .. the EA never said the offer was accepted or rejected, citing issues with the vendor's circumstances etc.

Eventually, I called the EA and said we were out of the picture and to let the vendor know.

Within a week I got a call to say that the vendor was willing to accept our offer. I said great, but we'd have to go through the whole mortgage application again (letter of offer for the banks only stay live for 3 months now!) but subject to survey and renewed approval from the bank we were happy to close and offered a booking deposit.

Was told not to worry about booking deposit, I updated the EA a few days later to say approval would be another 48hrs away to be told that a new bidder arrived on the scene offing 'cash' two grand above my offer .. spinning a great yarn as to the type of bidder.

I decided I didn't want to get in to horse trading and my offer was my offer as it had been for six months (partially not believing the EA that any other offer was on the table) .. and was walking away again.

Subsequently I have discovered that there is indeed another party interested (may have a connection to the EA .. actually I have been informed is a close friend / assoc of the EA) .

I decided to offer a couple of quid extra and was willing to put down the deposit immediately to be told by the EA that it wasn't an option as the other buyer would match my offer and is a 'cash' buyer and the fact we have to get bank valuation etc done it boils down to time frames not price.

I bit the bullet and contacted the vendor directly and it turns out that the EA has been economical with the truth all along and our original offer was never put to the vendor, it was only put to the vendor two weeks ago.

What I really feel is happening is that the EA had an interested associate all along and we were only there to set a low offer price after months of no interest and as soon as the vendor accepted the offer this assoc drops in and steals the deal.

Is this practice (if can be proven) illegal or even contary to any professional code of ethics? At the moment from a number of different sources I have plenty of actual information as to what is going on and have a direct line of communication with the vendor .. I am sure of my information and regardless of the outcome with the sale I would like to pursue the EA's actions further

I can't imagine the vendor is too happy with the EA after not being informed of an offer on the table. Ultimately though human nature being what it is they'll probably just go with the highest bidder. Talk directly to the vendor tell them this is your offer take it or leave it. If your competing against a cash buyer you may end up being priced out of a deal or overpaying for the house. The lesson here is don't wait too long for a decision back from the EA, you make your offer if it's accepted you move on quickly with the contracts etc... If EA is fobbing you off, walk away. I've no doubt the vendors circumstances may have been an issue and maybe he was in negative equity and needs approval from his lender to sell... Whatever the case it should be resolved one way or the other in a matter of weeks, not months.

the GALL

I'll give you a good one. I'm trying to sell my house the last 2 year the estate agent we had told us the price we should expect etc etc. Wasn't to happy with it but there ya go. Having looked on Daft we noticed that there was only one other house in the area that was in around the same price as ours.
After a while we decided to drop the price to keep within market try to drum up interest, a couple of days later the house up the road had dropped their price. About 4 months later we dropped our price again and again the house up the road dropped there price. I got onto the estate agent to find out what the story was (he is also selling the house up the road).
He was vague and said the vendor was just keeping to the market and instructed him to drop the price. We took it at that. After a couple of months we dropped our price again the house up the road dropped theirs. I thought this was a bit of a coincidence so asked around about the house it turns out that the estate agent we were employing to sell our house owns the house up the road.
I know it's a free market and all that but there should be something written into estate agent code about conflict of interest. The more I think about, him telling us we should get x for it if we hold out he's working his socks of to get us the best priced (he was deliberately giving us bad advice keeping our price above his).
My advice with working with any estate agent or anybody that you are trusting to get things done is to check them out thoroughly and then check them again. Get onto the guy selling the house and inform him of his estate agents action, I'm guessing he will not be too pleased to hear he could have got your bid 6 months ago but wasn't made aware of it.

killers1

the GALL wrote: »

I'll give you a good one. I'm trying to sell my house the last 2 year the estate agent we had told us the price we should expect etc etc. Wasn't to happy with it but there ya go. Having looked on Daft we noticed that there was only one other house in the area that was in around the same price as ours.
After a while we decided to drop the price to keep within market try to drum up interest, a couple of days later the house up the road had dropped their price. About 4 months later we dropped our price again and again the house up the road dropped there price. I got onto the estate agent to find out what the story was (he is also selling the house up the road).
He was vague and said the vendor was just keeping to the market and instructed him to drop the price. We took it at that. After a couple of months we dropped our price again the house up the road dropped theirs. I thought this was a bit of a coincidence so asked around about the house it turns out that the estate agent we were employing to sell our house owns the house up the road.
I know it's a free market and all that but there should be something written into estate agent code about conflict of interest. The more I think about, him telling us we should get x for it if we hold out he's working his socks of to get us the best priced (he was deliberately giving us bad advice keeping our price above his).
My advice with working with any estate agent or anybody that you are trusting to get things done is to check them out thoroughly and then check them again. Get onto the guy selling the house and inform him of his estate agents action, I'm guessing he will not be too pleased to hear he could have got your bid 6 months ago but wasn't made aware of it.

Very underhand behaviour on the part of the EA but nothing illegal going on. Has either house sold yet? If I was putting my house up for sale I'd contact any estate agent selling properties in the immediate vicinity on the pretence that I'm interested in buying one of their properties and get as much info as you can about price changes, length of time on the Market etc.. Then I think I'd sell it myself as at the end of the day it's daft.ie or myhome.ie which will attract the majority of interested parties as opposed to an EA's window display. Only difference between using an EA is that booking deposit is handled via solicitors. How hard can it be to show your property off to prospective buyers at a viewing!?

TheDriver

I am sale agreed by myself and its grand, viewers were happy not to deal with an ea. Deposit means nothing until signing so I didn't look for one as its messy but insisted on solicitor details quickly.
don't trust ea at all

whippet

I bit the bullet this morning, contacted vendor directly, explained our situation, and the vendor told me they were suspicious of last minute bidder.

Vendor agreed to sell to us at the offered price and told us he would be contacting EA to instruct them to close sale as agreed.

A couple of nervy hours later (what someone says they will do and what they actually do can always differ) I get a call from EA telling me we had the house and to instruct solicitors.

After speaking to the vendor my suspicions are increased and I really feel like the EA was using us to set the lowest offer and have an assoc swoop in at the last minute with 'cash' sale to get the deal. While the EA insisted that time was of the essence the vendor is quite the opposite actually would like a couple of months between sale agreed and handover .. which suits me even more.

killers1

whippet wrote: »

I bit the bullet this morning, contacted vendor directly, explained our situation, and the vendor told me they were suspicious of last minute bidder.

Vendor agreed to sell to us at the offered price and told us he would be contacting EA to instruct them to close sale as agreed.

A couple of nervy hours later (what someone says they will do and what they actually do can always differ) I get a call from EA telling me we had the house and to instruct solicitors.

After speaking to the vendor my suspicions are increased and I really feel like the EA was using us to set the lowest offer and have an assoc swoop in at the last minute with 'cash' sale to get the deal. While the EA insisted that time was of the essence the vendor is quite the opposite actually would like a couple of months between sale agreed and handover .. which suits me even more.

If you can be lucky enough to be able to contact the vendor directly it can sometimes save a lot of messing around... Glad to see things worked out - well done!

whippet

killers1 wrote: »

If you can be lucky enough to be able to contact the vendor directly it can sometimes save a lot of messing around... Glad to see things worked out - well done!

I buy stuff for a profession !!! I don't suffer fools or gob****es in my profession and when my family is concerned fools and gob****es will be bypassed.

The whole experience has had me wondering what function do EA's actually perform in this day and age.

Six months of back and forth with a EA yielded nothing while a 20 minute phone call with the vendor had the deal done.

TheDriver

my experiences of selling my house myself have been positive so far, people like to hear the truth when asking questions and like to deal direct. It also cuts out time wasters offering silly bids because there is no middle man to save face. And no one can show my house better than me because i have the biggest vested interest.
And the fees they charge, don't get me started...........

zulfikarMD

I made a offer on one of the house and it was rejected straight away saying "it is rediculous to put it through to the seller". I said fine. Then, I made a revised offer after few days and i was told "call me if you have offer exceeding XX amount as I already have offer of XX amount".

I am not sure how much is truth here..how can we find EA genuinely has an offer? is it possible to walk direclty to the seller (considering i've not seen/met owner before)??

Any ideas/suggestion how to deal with this?

ToxicPaddy

whippet wrote: »

I buy stuff for a profession !!! I don't suffer fools or gob****es in my profession and when my family is concerned fools and gob****es will be bypassed.

The whole experience has had me wondering what function do EA's actually perform in this day and age.

Six months of back and forth with a EA yielded nothing while a 20 minute phone call with the vendor had the deal done.

Disgraceful behaviour by the EA.. without getting into the whole EA bashing scenario, I'm not one bit surprised.

I'd be having a "quiet chat" with the EA after everything is done and signed off and informing him that you found out about his underhanded tactics and informing him you will be spreading the word between friends and family to avoid him at all costs due to his disgraceful and very unethical behaviour.

whippet

ToxicPaddy wrote: »

Disgraceful behaviour by the EA.. without getting into the whole EA bashing scenario, I'm not one bit surprised.

I'd be having a "quiet chat" with the EA after everything is done and signed off and informing him that you found out about his underhanded tactics and informing him you will be spreading the word between friends and family to avoid him at all costs due to his disgraceful and very unethical behaviour.

most definitely will be pursuing this further, I have the deal done (the important thing) and when the whole issue is out of the EA's hands and they are a thing of the past I will be collecting actual evidence of what went on and sending a well drafted letter to the relevant professional body.

Unfortunatly for the EA they pulled a stunt like this a few years ago to someone local to the area and that is how I managed to get the inside info. There now is at least 10 different people who have given me info and know exactly what went on. The EA in question is based almost solely in this area and the damage to their rep is going to be serious (No issue with liable / slander etc as these people are all forming their own opinions based on actual events ... ).

The vendor will be supplied with actual evidence (voice mails etc.. ) which will prove that the EA withheld significant information (my original bid) and told a potential buyer (me) that the deal was done and the house was now off the market - when a price hadn't even been agreed.

Also, The vendor has also told me that the EA was 'bitching' about me, insisted that I was a tyre kicker and hadn't the means to purchase the property.

Readyhed

whippet wrote: »

I bit the bullet this morning, contacted vendor directly, explained our situation, and the vendor told me they were suspicious of last minute bidder.

Vendor agreed to sell to us at the offered price and told us he would be contacting EA to instruct them to close sale as agreed.

A couple of nervy hours later (what someone says they will do and what they actually do can always differ) I get a call from EA telling me we had the house and to instruct solicitors.

After speaking to the vendor my suspicions are increased and I really feel like the EA was using us to set the lowest offer and have an assoc swoop in at the last minute with 'cash' sale to get the deal. While the EA insisted that time was of the essence the vendor is quite the opposite actually would like a couple of months between sale agreed and handover .. which suits me even more.

My advice now is to get the details of the vendor's solicitor and get one yourself. Have no further dealings with the EA and process all the deposits etc., through the solicitors.

If he is a member of the IAVI or whatever then make a formal complaint to them.

clarsax

Have almost exactly same experience! North dublin city by any chance?? I believe a particular agent is so poor I refuse to view another property with him. Blatant lies, run arounds and highly inappropriate in my view

whippet

clarsax wrote: »

Have almost exactly same experience! North dublin city by any chance?? I believe a particular agent is so poor I refuse to view another property with him. Blatant lies, run arounds and highly inappropriate in my view

much more remote than dublin actually, but i'd imagine it goes on all the time.

Personally I believe the day of EAs should be on the way out. The only function I see that they actually provide is:

- facilitating viewings (something a vendor could actually do if they wanted to)
- write fluffy statements for myhome.ie
- add a cost to the vendor which more often than not is passed on to the buyer.

Horrible horrible people, this one in particular almost cost me buying the family home I wanted and cost the seller a proper sales process .. along with 6 months of a delay.

Readyhed

This is the code of conduct:

http://www.npsra.ie/website/npsra/npsraweb.nsf/0/E5CF38D56EB285878025738D004C69C3/$File/Code%20of%20Practice.pdf

2.4: Duty to Client

Property Services Providers should at all times
• Act in the best interest of their clients and with integrity and fairness to others.
• Promptly and without undue delay inform clients, or their representatives, of any

offer made on the property covered by the agreement or letter of engagement.

odds_on

clarsax wrote: »

Have almost exactly same experience! North dublin city by any chance?? I believe a particular agent is so poor I refuse to view another property with him. Blatant lies, run arounds and highly inappropriate in my view

Just the one????

I have blacklisted over 10, around the country for their non-existent service - pity, because they have advertised some properties that I might be interested in viewing. However, there are lots of properties and I'll not miss those with a blacklisted EA. I am in the position where I can buy anywhere in the country as I am retired but want a place to live out my days (having an incurable cancer)

I have my own little database with over 50 properties that could be the winner - I've been keeping the database for over a year so it is very informative - price drops, price increases (those properties are out) etc.

evolving_doors

the GALL wrote: »

I'll give you a good one. I'm trying to sell my house the last 2 year the estate agent we had told us the price we should expect etc etc. Wasn't to happy with it but there ya go. Having looked on Daft we noticed that there was only one other house in the area that was in around the same price as ours.
After a while we decided to drop the price to keep within market try to drum up interest, a couple of days later the house up the road had dropped their price. About 4 months later we dropped our price again and again the house up the road dropped there price. I got onto the estate agent to find out what the story was (he is also selling the house up the road).
He was vague and said the vendor was just keeping to the market and instructed him to drop the price. We took it at that. After a couple of months we dropped our price again the house up the road dropped theirs. I thought this was a bit of a coincidence so asked around about the house it turns out that the estate agent we were employing to sell our house owns the house up the road.
I know it's a free market and all that but there should be something written into estate agent code about conflict of interest. The more I think about, him telling us we should get x for it if we hold out he's working his socks of to get us the best priced (he was deliberately giving us bad advice keeping our price above his).
My advice with working with any estate agent or anybody that you are trusting to get things done is to check them out thoroughly and then check them again. Get onto the guy selling the house and inform him of his estate agents action, I'm guessing he will not be too pleased to hear he could have got your bid 6 months ago but wasn't made aware of it.

Hmm maybe he might have been trying to genuinely sell his house but because you kept dropping your price you were forcing him to do the same! in this case you were actually setting the market rate? He was nt actually lying when he said he was trying to keep up with the market

wexie

Hi people,

Just reading these posts about estate agents and starting to wonder about my own EA. We've literally only just put our house on the market but already I have my doubts about the agent. Nothing major so far, other than listing the house for a price we specifically stated not to list the house for and listing the house before we asked him to, putting up a sign despite specifically being told not to yet.....:mad:

I appreciate we can't go around slandering estate agents here (god forbid). If anyone has any experience with estate agents 'round my neck of the woods (see profile) any feedback by PM would be much appreciated.

thanks

killers1

wexie wrote: »

Hi people,

Just reading these posts about estate agents and starting to wonder about my own EA. We've literally only just put our house on the market but already I have my doubts about the agent. Nothing major so far, other than listing the house for a price we specifically stated not to list the house for and listing the house before we asked him to, putting up a sign despite specifically being told not to yet.....:mad:

I appreciate we can't go around slandering estate agents here (god forbid). If anyone has any experience with estate agents 'round my neck of the woods (see profile) any feedback by PM would be much appreciated.

thanks

Don't know any EA's well enough there to recommend but I would say to get a friend of yours to ring the EA and pretend to be interested in the property. Maybe even have them arrange a viewing and put an offer in of some sort.... Their feedback could be invaluable...in terms of how easy it was to contact the EA, how quickly they return calls, did they actually put the offer to you etc etc etc etc...sort of your own mystery shopper!

odds_on

killers1 wrote: »

Don't know any EA's well enough there to recommend but I would say to get a friend of yours to ring the EA and pretend to be interested in the property. Maybe even have them arrange a viewing and put an offer in of some sort.... Their feedback could be invaluable...in terms of how easy it was to contact the EA, how quickly they return calls, did they actually put the offer to you etc etc etc etc...sort of your own mystery shopper!

Before ringing, try an email. My experience with emails is that very few EAs reply. I had one EA the other day saying that the problem must be with daft.ie and that he had not received any of my three emails. However, I got my copy from daft on each occasion.