Estate agent and bizarre behaviour

Fruit1985

Hello all,

I am in the process of purchasing an apartment and the following is occurring and what to ask your advice.

1. End of October - Apartment becomes Sale Agreed. I was bidding for a while and estate agent stated that final offer was on the last day of October. I was the highest bidder. I won't go into the ins and outs of my dealings with the estate agent but my dealings with her didn't make me think she was the most honest person in the world (but hey - they are all like that eh?)

2. November - Survey and engineering review complete, booking deposit paid, second viewing and happy with everything. Everything is sorted with mortgage and ready to be drawn down from bank. Apartment is made "Sale Agreed" on daft.

3. November,December - My solicitor doesn't receive deeds or contracts. He writes to seller's solicitor who claims he is waiting on the seller to sign contracts.

4. First week back in January - I put small bit of pressure on estate agent for an update and heard nothing. She still claims that everything is in order and just waiting on the deeds.

5. Today I rang the estate agent and I put a lot of pressure on her - asking her why nothing has been received yet and she is following up with additional enquiries.

I just checked daft.ie now and she updated the ad yesterday evening stating that the apartment went sale agreed today! (She updated it in the description field.) I also noticed she took down the ability to contact her about the property.

Do you think she had another buyer who was in the midst and was still seeing if they would go higher? Any other thoughts on what this kind of behaviour could signify?

porsche boy

sounds like she was playing you off someone else. This happened to me years back, i was buying an apartment in Finglas, price agreed and deal done i thought. Things started to drag and little contact from the agent had me wondering so when i looked into it he had relisted the apartment at a higher price (this was during the boom).
To cut a long story short i reported him the regulatory body, cant think of the name now, and cancelled all contracts and dealings with him.
The best was yet to come though, i started recieving ESB and gas bills to my address, fornthe property i was trying to buy. I saw red and went straight into his office, scared off some clients he was dealing with and shoved the bills in his face. To help the owners this fool had changed over all the bills to me, i still dont know how he managed this but anyway.
A few months later i got a random phone call of a different estate agent seeing if i was interested in buying the apartment at a fair discount from what i had initially offered but i just had signed for the house I'm in now. Pure madness it was when i think back.
anyway be careful of dealings with these lads, they are in it for themselves and their commission and little else.

BenIrishHome

To be honest, I don't think she was. It often is a delay with the vendor or usually their bank plus the agent and solicitor all being slow to get things moving. Getting the deeds out of the bank takes a while, solicitors are very slow and agents are lazy to push things along once sale agreed. I'd say that plus the time of year just slowed everything up. Nothing goes as fast as you think it should.

She probably was just tidying house with the Daft ad etc.

You are right to be wary because I wouldn't put it passed her, but I think it's probably just the usual slowness and delays.

Let us know if anything else happens that makes you worry.

Fruit1985

So my solicitor maintains there is something going on with the seller i.e. divorce or the seller is in negative equity that she is not letting me know about to keep me keen and interested. My solicitor also maintains she is telling me what I want to hear every time I ring up and is appeasing me which seems to be true.

The only thing that I must say that's positive about this estate agent is she does get back to me in a timely manner every time I reach out to her - but information is never there and she's always waiting to hear from the seller.

I genuinely don't know whether to attribute this to something on the seller side delaying things she is not being transparent about or the "usual slowness and delays."

I'm okay with slowness and delays but I require transparency into what's causing them - I think that's the professional thing to do.

The Spider

Fruit1985 wrote: »

So my solicitor maintains there is something going on with the seller i.e. divorce or the seller is in negative equity that she is not letting me know about to keep me keen and interested. My solicitor also maintains she is telling me what I want to hear every time I ring up and is appeasing me which seems to be true.

The only thing that I must say that's positive about this estate agent is she does get back to me in a timely manner every time I reach out to her - but information is never there and she's always waiting to hear from the seller.

I genuinely don't know whether to attribute this to something on the seller side delaying things she is not being transparent about or the "usual slowness and delays."

I'm okay with slowness and delays but I require transparency into what's causing them - I think that's the professional thing to do.

Yep pain in the hoop! It could be because the bank is selling it and it tends to take longer. Had the same when we bought the house, you're never sure till final contracts are signed, took about five months.

Gumbo

My friend went sale agreed 9 months ago, just signed yesterday. Banks were dragging their heels.

TheDriver

kceire wrote: »

My friend went sale agreed 9 months ago, just signed yesterday. Banks were dragging their heels.

I would think more likely the bank were negotiating/discussing debt to be carried forward. If there is no neg equity, you should get the deeds in 1-3 weeks.

nhealymoore

Agents are so hit and miss!

Was dealing with <Snip> recently as a potential property buyer. Put quite a high bid on a property with this agent, was laughed at as my bid was 'only' a couple of grand over last bidder (my bid was almost 5k over asking price). I was never contacted again after they registered my bid. Very unprofessional agents, typical Celtic tiger attitude, avoid at all costs!

I have since bought trough SherryFitz who were an absolute pleasure to work with. Contracts were over to my solicitor in 2 weeks, the agent went out of her way to contact me for updates and offered advice where she could. Everything in order and keys handed over within 2 months. Would always recommend Sherryfitz over any other agent.

Fruit1985

Note: I still haven't closed on this property.

I found out the estate agent was LYING to me the whole time. The solicitors were taking their sweet time with everything and the type of sale changed (it was a normal sale then the bank got involved) and the estate agent didn't relay any of this to me and kept telling me lies about closing dates which went on for weeks and weeks.

I confronted her and the company director (Note it's a big estate agent firm in Dublin) got a fully apology from the director about the lies but I still don't have my keys as still awaiting on contracts.

ESTATE AGENTS ARE THE SCUM OF THE EARTH. Big company - small company - doesn't matter. Ironically - they have put me off living in this country.

I don't think I'll ever be able to get over the amount of needless stress this sale has caused me.

The_Morrigan

Fruit1985 wrote: »

ESTATE AGENTS ARE THE SCUM OF THE EARTH. Big company - small company - doesn't matter. Ironically - they have put me off living in this country.

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