Action against Estate Agent possible?

[Roo]

kingston12 said:

I have had an update from the agent.

Apparently, it was a case of a naive vendor.

The original offer was slightly higher than ours, but the buyer obviously managed to get wind of the vendor's financial situation and used that knowledge to force them to accept a £70k gazunder on the day of exchange.

Oh well...

What a low life thing to do.

[fido]

Roo said:

What a low life thing to do.

You believe that story .. 'sealed bids' and the vendor just sucked up a 70k hit a day before exchange?
I'd wager that someone is about to upgrade their Audi A3 1.6 cloth trim to a 2.0 TFSI with leather trim & Bose.

Edited by fido on Thursday 31st July 11:41

[blueg33]

fido said:

Roo said:

What a low life thing to do.

You believe that story .. 'sealed bids' and the vendor just sucked up a 70k hit a day before exchange?
I'd wager that someone is about to upgrade their Audi A3 1.6 cloth trim to a 2.0 TFSI with leather trim & Bose.

Edited by fido on Thursday 31st July 11:41

Happens all of the time. Especially if vendor doesn't want to start the process again. The property I have just sold by sealed bid tender sold at £250k, if the buyer chips me on the day of exchange I may complain, but I only need £200k for it and the time to start again will cost me more

In my experience, estate agents are no more fraudulent than any other profession.

[kingston12]

blueg33 said:

fido said:

Roo said:

What a low life thing to do.

You believe that story .. 'sealed bids' and the vendor just sucked up a 70k hit a day before exchange?
I'd wager that someone is about to upgrade their Audi A3 1.6 cloth trim to a 2.0 TFSI with leather trim & Bose.

Edited by fido on Thursday 31st July 11:41

Happens all of the time. Especially if vendor doesn't want to start the process again. The property I have just sold by sealed bid tender sold at £250k, if the buyer chips me on the day of exchange I may complain, but I only need £200k for it and the time to start again will cost me more

In my experience, estate agents are no more fraudulent than any other profession.

That is what the agent said went on here - the vendor would rather take £70k less now than the full amount a bit later.

The thing that is strange about it is that the market is very competitive and there were several other buyers lined up to pay the full amount.

We'd made it clear we were in a position to move very quickly, but it still would have a been a few weeks additional delay.

If I put myself in the vendor's position, there is just no way I'd take that much of a hit, but I guess everyone is different.

I will drop a note to the vendor as that seems the right thing to do. It will only take a couple of minutes and might be beneficial for them.

[blueg33]

Rule 1 of property transactions - Greed is usually the driving force
Rule 2 of property transactions - A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush

I think Rule 2 has taken precedence here

[kingston12]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Indeed. Of course, he told me that he advised the vendor to re-market, but the loss is much less for him than it is for him.

When I have sold places in the past, I have always insisted on a sliding commission scale, so they get paid, say, 1.5% if they get what I really want, but only 1% if they get less. That is a bit more motivating because the difference can be a bit more significant.

The annoying thing is that in this case, the vendor could have just put up a homemade 'For Sale' board and still got more than they ended up with!

[blueg33]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

We don't know if that was the agents advice or the sellers decision. They are very different points. Without knowing the sellers situation we cannot make a judgement.

[Mr GrimNasty]

Who knows what the seller's position was. It may have been a fire sale before foreclosure. The seller may have still been getting out with some equity or credit rating that would have been lost if the bank took the house.