Buying houses, does everyone lie?

Buying houses, does everyone lie?

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Discussion

surveyor

17,768 posts

183 months

Monday 24th October 2016
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98elise said:
SuperVM said:
The main problem is that the process is completely broken, at least outside of Scotland. We've had our chain fall apart twice and it has cost us about six months and put us back on the market at a fairly slow part of the year, all without penalty to the parties who have decided to change their minds.
Agreed.

When I am president of the UK there will be an initial contract formed when the sale price is agreed. Either party can only back out if there are very specific circumstances which can't be resolved.
It's not perfect in Scotland. My relatives paid out for 3 valuations as they had to have finance in place at a very early stage, and things then cropped up or the deal just did not get agreed.

But the answer to OP is yes. In the commercial world everyone is a cash buyer, right until they need to send the valuer around for a small 'topup' loan...

m3jappa

Original Poster:

6,394 posts

217 months

Monday 24th October 2016
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Tomo1971 said:
Why is THEIR estate agent suggesting that you dont submit an offer yet. That is rather odd, it is their job and moral obligation to pass on ANY offer from prospective buyers. Maybe he thinks that the sellers will be tempted and accept thus reducing their commission (if the house was on longer and received a better offer).

Seems quite strange.
It does seem strange. The way he's selling it to me is that because we are offering less and our chain isn't complete she's very unlikely to accept the offer and even less unlikely to take off the market which is fair enough.
He has suggested that after a couple of weeks or month or whatever that if no one else has bought but our chain is complete then maybe she will accept.
I get all that.

However at the same time I'm not even sure if we are totally barking up the wrong tree in that her answer will be a flat no. Maybe the agent thinks we can up our offer (we can't/don't want to, especially if it's not sold in 1,2,3 months time.) it would be nice to know if it was something she would consider.

The agents phoned my wife a couple of times now to see how we are getting on and we know there's not been lots of interest.


Back to the lies, what most have said is what I have thought. I think they could find out easily if your telling a lie and then you would lose all credibility, possibly making the vendor not even want to deal with you.

ou sont les biscuits

5,087 posts

194 months

Tuesday 25th October 2016
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m3jappa said:
Back to the lies, what most have said is what I have thought. I think they could find out easily if your telling a lie and then you would lose all credibility, possibly making the vendor not even want to deal with you.
Having read through all of this, I can understand where the people you want to buy from's agent is coming from. Until you have a chain in place below you, then you aren't 'proceedable', which makes it unlikely that any offer you make below the asking price would be acceptable to the seller. If the asking price is optimistic, they may well entertain an asking price offer with an incomplete chain for obvious reasons.

As for telling lies..... as soon as you make an offer, the seller's agent will be on the phone to all the other agents in the possible chain to check out who is in a position to proceed. That then gets reported back to the seller so that they get enough information to make an informed decision as to whether the offer might be worth accepting.

Having just been through this process, the thing you find out very quickly, if you are trying to buy a house that is priced 'optimistically', is that the seller's agent will be trying his utmost to get a sale agreed so he gets some commission, (because you might be the only buyer on the horizon) and so will be on the phone to you once a day, whilst your own agent will be putting a lot of pressure on you too to put up with a load of crap from your buyer - we even got to the point where our agent was pushing us to exchange on our sale and move into rented accommodation before exchanging on the purchase. The agents commission is payable on exchange, although the monies are often actually paid over at completion. So paradoxically, it often seems like the seller's agent is working for you, and your agent is working for your buyer. The only thing that drives these people is the desire to bank their commission.

dmsims

6,453 posts

266 months

Tuesday 25th October 2016
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ou sont les biscuits said:
As for telling lies..... as soon as you make an offer, the seller's agent will be on the phone to all the other agents in the possible chain to check out who is in a position to proceed. That then gets reported back to the seller so that they get enough information to make an informed decision as to whether the offer might be worth accepting.
This assumes a degree of competence rolleyes

and a lot of people lie

rah1888

1,546 posts

186 months

Tuesday 25th October 2016
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Tomo1971 said:
Why is THEIR estate agent suggesting that you dont submit an offer yet. That is rather odd, it is their job and moral obligation to pass on ANY offer from prospective buyers. Maybe he thinks that the sellers will be tempted and accept thus reducing their commission (if the house was on longer and received a better offer).

Seems quite strange.
Not strange at all. The estate agent knows that any offer is essentially meaningless until the prospective buyer has received an offer on their existing property, and has secured a complete chain below. The EA is probably trying to prevent a sitauation where buyer makes an offer for a property, based on the buyer selling their own property for X, and then later the buyer finds they are only able to sell at X - £20k, and needs to reduce the offer on the property they wished to purchase. Result, disappointed seller. Perhaps if they had never received the higher offer of X they may not be as disappointed.

The difference in the EAs commission is likely to be so tiny it's not a factor.

troc

3,740 posts

174 months

Tuesday 25th October 2016
quotequote all
That's why I like the Dutch system. Once a seller has accepted (or made a counter-bid on) an offer from a buyer, they are locked into negotiating with that one party until they agree a price or give up. Only then can a new buyer start negotiations.

Once a price is agreed, the buyer is essentially locked into buying and will forfeit 10% of the value if they pull out unless it's for vary specific reasons (the usual one being that no bank is willing to provide them with a mortgage).

The whole system is run through government-paid notaries and tends to be quite quick and stress free.

(recently, there has been a change in some places where sealed bids are now the usual way of bidding due to lack of supply and a screwed-up market - e.g. Amsterdam)

Rangeroverover

1,522 posts

110 months

Tuesday 25th October 2016
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We don't accept an offer until we have spoken to all the agents up and down the chain, all agents "should" do this.

When I am telling a vendor of your offer I am selling you to them, if you are bidding low and I tell them that your house sale isn't proceedable inevitably they will say leave it on the market until they have a credible offer. If you have a credible sale, your buyer has paid for searches then I can sell your offer to the vendor

What is more annoying is buyers aying its all cash, accepting an offer on that basis then finding out they need a mortgage so its not going to be the quick transaction we had been told.

oyster

12,577 posts

247 months

Tuesday 25th October 2016
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OP, if you re-phrased your question as:
'Does anyone declare all truths when buying or selling a house?' then the answer will be an emphatic no.

Adam B

27,143 posts

253 months

Tuesday 25th October 2016
quotequote all
Am I missing something?

I bought and sold a year ago.

My agent asked bidders for a copy of the mortgage offer and the accepted offer on their property from their selling agent. I didn't ask to see them but my agent (who is local and trusted) did and confirmed to me.

One thing to lie, quite another to forge documents.

blade7

11,311 posts

215 months

Tuesday 25th October 2016
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Some agents don't like cash buyers, no kickback for their in house mortgage arranger...

Welshbeef

49,633 posts

197 months

Tuesday 25th October 2016
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No never have nor will & from a us selling position no again ever.

dmsims

6,453 posts

266 months

Tuesday 25th October 2016
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Welshbeef said:
No never have nor will & from a us selling position no again ever.
Translation ?????????????????????

Welshbeef

49,633 posts

197 months

Tuesday 25th October 2016
quotequote all
dmsims said:
Welshbeef said:
No never have nor will & from a us selling position no again ever.
Translation ?????????????????????
Sorry

We have not lied on buying a house nor will we
None of omthe houses we have sold had anyone telling porkie pies either.