Estate Agents!!! Questionable dealings....

FileNotFound

Hi All,
Recently jumped back into the housing market and for the most part it has been straight forward. So far no luck in buying but clear and transparent nonetheless.
I was interested in a property being sold via <mod snip>, as is the norm I ended up in a bidding war and even better i was one of the final 2 involved. The final bids were to be closed with highest bid winning. So I proceeded to submit my bid and waited for a response. After waiting a day I called and was informed that I unfortunately did not succeed in getting the property.
Now for the interesting part: I knew the other bidder and low and behold they didn't get it either!! So I called the estate agent and it would appear that a magical third bidder was added last minute and managed to outbid both of us. This all seemed a bit suspicious (considering I bid far beyond what one would expect to ensure I won). 
Only today at work I spoke to a colleague, one who had previous dealings with them, she claims to be constantly told about prospective bidders willing to go to this and that (no actual bids), all while she was the highest bidder. Sounded like trying to bump up the price. On one particular property she had bid on (was top bidder), she heard nothing for a week only to enquire to hear house was sale agreed with another bidder. She was never informed of higher bid or given the chance to respond.
Is this just the way it is? Is there no regulation? Are this crowd of gangsters rare or can I expect to come across the likes all over?
Disheartened to say the least.

Slunk

Having recently purchased a house we had always been told to avoid <snip> Our friends were also given the same advice. Too many dosgey goings on and very unprofessional way of dealing with people

Browney7

Any prospective seller that finds this will be knocking their door down!

Samuel T. Cogley

Very much the Better Call Saul of EA's.

Also OP's assertion that anything about buying a house is clear or transparent gave me a smile :pac:

miezekatze

We were looking at houses 3-4 years ago and I remember <snip> had an awful reputation even then for being very unprofessional and messing people around. I would avoid them completely.

Rackstar

How did you know the 2nd bidder? Were you the 2nd bidder and testing the EA?

athtrasna

Identifying companies leaves Boards open to legal action. Please do not do this.

Mod

The_Conductor

Guys- if you have going-on such as these- there is a regulatory body, from whom estate agents are required to hold a licence- the Property Sector Regulatory Authority. They're based in Navan- and take a very dim view of these type activities. Google them- document the happenings and send your evidence to the PSRA- who *will* take action on it.

CreepingDeath

The_Conductor wrote: »

Guys- if you have going-on such as these- there is a regulatory body, from whom estate agents are required to hold a licence- the Property Sector Regulatory Authority. They're based in Navan- and take a very dim view of these type activities. Google them- document the happenings and send your evidence to the PSRA- who *will* take action on it.

Not in my experience.

We were actively bidding on a house in Drogheda and thought we had the highest bid, €12k over the asking price.
3 weeks later we see sale agreed on the website to someone else.
The estate agent then refused to return 3 of our calls.

Reported them to PSRA.
One YEAR later, I got the Drogheda estate agents response from PSRA.
I haven't counter replied yet.... but they seem useless to me.

FileNotFound

First apologies if i broke the rules in naming the agency.

Second @rackstar as stated it turned out i knew the other bidder by chance. (not that this mattered). <mod snip>

Its a pity there isnt a site like "rate the estate agent". If nothing else it would put pressure on them to be a bit more honest. 

In smaller towns one can find out more about property and owners. However in Dublin in many cases it can be difficult to know anymore than the agent says.  

I do wonder what they would require as proof to actually act on a complaint, as lets be honest its a system designed to be taken advantage of.

Retrovertigo

I've had this happen to me OP. An auctioneer managed to get me to bump my offer twice due to some mysterious new bidder in the mix, after the 2nd time I got suspicious and when they called me back to say another bid was put in I told them to forget about it. Mysteriously enough that bidder disappeared and they came back to me after some time, I dropped my previous bids and ended up getting to the contract stage.

House never went through though as the seller was humming and hawing about the price so I told them to stick it. Massive waste of time and money with solicitors going back and forth. You might have had a lucky escape.