Currently buying/selling a house? How is it going? READ MOD NOTE POST #1

Oh no. I’m with Ptsb and waiting on feedback from legal department to release funding. No responses and we were hoping to drawdown in the next week or 2 . Only I looked here I would not have known about the cutoff date of 10th December. Regretting choosing them over AIB 😢

Been sale agreed on a house for 6 months now. There have been several issues with the house (planning and boundaries etc), and the solicitors are operating at a snails pace to get issues resolved but I've been patient. Now the estate agent is threatening to pull the sale if I don't sign contracts, and is generally just being a pain. I can't sign them until one final issue is resolved (which could still take weeks). Incredibly stressful to deal with 😥 Is it too risky to ask the estate agent not to contact me again unless there's an urgent matter?

Congratulations your just there. We re waiting a week now since everything was sent in to them, hope to have them by end of week and close early next week too.

Moved

Signed over a week ago, seller's solicitor still hasnt responded to my solicitor, pre-Christmas closing look very unlikely at this stage :(

Can’t agree more. They know that every house extension, new porch, attic conversion, constructed Shed either needs a planning permission or certificate of exemption. That should be sorted before putting the house up for sale. If they are local to the area, they know which estate have the usual right of way issues. They can easily check if there is potential encroachment issue with the neighbour. They are just lazy. It will benefit all parties to have a quick sale but yet they leave everything last minute.

I found when I was buying that some agents are far better than others.

You have some who are holding your hand all the way through the process and are ahead of the game in what you need to do.

But some, and 2 in particular were woeful. I would never ever engage them to sell my house.

One of them had a smug attitude on her that just put you off. she handled any questions we had terribly and would always fire back with questions about our suitability for a mortgage. We viewed 2 houses with her and then crossed anymore that she was handling off the list. Would never go see a house her company was handling again.

Another (from a franchise) we found very distant and even though we had everything in place and were cash buyers she took a week to even bring our bid to the vendor. It was a neighbor we knew who told the vendor we had bid, and only then they get the bid from the agent after they asked about it. Then for weeks we would be ringing the agent to ask what the story was and how it was progressing. Sometimes she never returned our calls and sometimes she would ring back without having even checked what our question was after a few days. We put up with a month of this and just bailed. Would never engage her company to sell a house either in future.

Then eventually (another franchise) we did end up buying and they couldnt have been more proactive. They were a pleasure to deal with. Would use them all day long if ever selling a property now.

Also viewed a house advertised on moovingo. There is an agent you deal with and the owner shows their house. The agent took a week to get back to my original inquiry which wasnt good. We did view the house and found the owner lovely, but the house wasnt for us at the time. A week later the moovingo agent called me and said. Exact quote "So have you any interest in that house or not?". "We were thinking about it but its not for us". "OK, bye." and he hangs up.

I guess some estate agents are just better than others, but by God if I was selling a house id be avoiding some of those. All i will say is when you are buying take note of how good the agents are, so you know which ones to avoid if you are ever selling.

The issues will eventually surface though so better be proactive about them. We were interested in a property during the height of lockdown when no viewing was allowed. We rang to enquire about the property and we’re ready to place a bid. The EA presented all the known issues of neighbouring property going over the boundary with their double storey garage conversion. Asked us if we are willing to go ahead and that it will likely be an issue if we are to do the same conversion in the future… that saved our time and potentially their time as we would definitely walked away when it comes up during conveyancing…. The experience with that EA made me sceptical about others who knows nothing.

I had gone sale agreed on an apartment, about 6 weeks had passed, I paid €450 for a surveyor and €300 for valuations from two separate banks, only to find out from the information that the management company disclosed to my solicitor that the block failed a fire audit and as well as being fundamentally unsafe, would cost millions to repair. Solicitor told me in no uncertain terms not to buy the place under any circumstances.

Complete waste of my time and money- there is no way the sellers didn’t know about this. Whether the agent knew or not is debatable- but he certainly knew when he put the ad back up online the day after I pulled out, telling him my reason. So he will definitely be lying to people’s faces when they ask him about any known issues. There should definitely be more regulation about this sort of thing.

Yes sounds like a complete waste of time for all involved. I would wonder now if that EA will have the brass neck to lie to people who ask why the previous sale agreed fell through. I suspect they'll be vague and say something about solicitors and hope no more questions are asked.

Unfortunately, such is the market, they'll likely find many people won't ask why the previous sale agreed fell through, such is the frantic rush to get a bid in now and ask questions later.

On fire safety issues more generally, if you're looking at an apartment built from the mid 90s to late 2000s, just assume they exist, unless the management co can prove otherwise by pointing to a recent fire audit. Most management cos of blocks of that era are burying their head in the sand about those issues hoping that they'll never be uncovered - ignorance is bliss.

And as a previous apartment owner I don't blame them given the massive costs of fixing them and effect on the value of people's property. This is somewhat unsolicited advice but seriously, don't take the fact that there's no known issues as a clean bill of health - only a recent fire audit can give that.

It seems like nobody is having a good time trying to get a smooth sale completed at the moment. It's been a long 15 weeks since we went sale agreed but our solicitor has FINALLY received contracts from the vendor (after a LOT of stress!). So far it looks like there will be minimal queries, possibly none. Once we sign, typically how long might it take for the vendor to sign and get to close? It probably varies right? I'm hoping we might get to sign before Christmas. Our mortgage will be with BOI.

I’d contact the estate agent. They may have some insight on the reasons for the delay and should be able to offer advice.