| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? 08:43 - Sep 8 with 9340 views | RangersDave |
Feck me,
Divorce done!
Agreed to 50% each of the house (minus fees etc)
Then contact a solicitor to get things rolling ........ WTF?
£250 per hour on the case .......WTF?
They want a deposit, ok not too much at £600 but WTF! then..... they want everything you own paper wise to prove your you, sheesh!
35 years ago it was so easy.
Any tips out there ladies and gents?
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 09:35 - Sep 8 with 6520 views | Hayesender |
Wait until they make it Illegal to sell a house without a heat pump, which is gonna cost thousands to install, and doesn't even work very well.
Agree with you though. Sold up just over a year ago, and between that and buying my new gaff, it was probably the most stressful time of my life.
All I can say is good luck |  |
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 09:36 - Sep 8 with 6523 views | Bluce_Ree |
My wife's c**t of a cousin used Purple Bricks and recommends them. But she's a c**t so take that as it is. |  |
| ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE THROUGH MARTI THE REDEEMER WHO STRENGTHENS ME. |
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 09:50 - Sep 8 with 6487 views | Northernr |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 09:36 - Sep 8 by Bluce_Ree |
My wife's c**t of a cousin used Purple Bricks and recommends them. But she's a c**t so take that as it is. |
Hmmm I used them to shift mine at the end of last year and, look, I guess they would tell you they got it sold, quickly, for the price I wanted. Still, I'd be very hesitant to recommend, and in fact haven't they just been absorbed into another group because their business model collapsed?
My situation was my mortgage came off its fix just as Liz and Kwasi were doing their thing, and housemate was moving out at same time, so my outgoing more than doubled to £2300 a month, in the space of about 6 weeks. Got the local agent round to value it to try and get a better rate and he gave us such a surprisingly decent price I said to him bring the fcking board round let's get it gone.
Then spoke to a few people who said don't do that, commission charges etc, just use one of the online peeps.
PurpleBricks couldn't do enough for us to start with, but if you don't want to pay up front you have to use their conveyancing team (which we didn't want to do cos we'd been told they were sht, and we had our own that we'd used before anyway). So we paid up front, at which point their interest in us and our house dropped off the side of a cliff. Also had the bizarre situation where smarmy bstrd no.1, who we dealt with first, fell off his motorbike, so PurpleBricks transferred the sale to smarmy bstrd no.2 for a week or so, only for smarmy bstrd no.1 to start ringing us up again once he was up and about asking why we'd gone with the other guy, we should be dealing with him, had smarmy bstrd no.2 been hassling us etc - mate, you're interchangeable wnkrs, just get on with it.
The girl they sent to do the viewings turned up with a fcking Chelsea badge on her lapel. She took the keys off me and turned to leave, I'm like "don't you want to look at the house?" "Oh, do you think I need to?" Well, aren't you fcking selling it?
They arranged a "viewing day" for the following Saturday (Coventry A last season), and thankfully a steady stream of interest came in during the week to the point where we had 14 viewings confirmed which I thought was very good.
So off I went to watch us lose at Coventry. Now, we've got one of those burglar alarm systems with cameras that track movement around the house so can watch on our phones and see a timeline of comings and goings etc, which of course Chelsea Twt didn't know. She turned up at midday and was gone by 1240. Two couples looked around. I sat in a pub in Coventry and watched them wander around themselves while she hung about downstairs on her phone. Fcking lazy cow.
One of the big things they'd told us in the sales pitch was "oh your local agent is only Monday to Friday, we'll do a viewing day Saturday and have all your feedback and offers ready to go Sunday morning". This was, of course, bolox. Had to wait until Monday for her feed back which was "absolutely fantastic day, super hectic and busy with a lot of walk ups, multiple people interested".
Fortunately for her, and us, one of the two couples who saw it liked it, offered at asking price, and we played that cool for about 45 seconds before snapping their hands off.
Then just the small matter of solicitors drawing out a sale between two people neither of whom were in a chain across five months because the electricity cupboard appeared as part of the neighbouring property on the land registry (as presumably it had done for the previous 60 fcking years and however many other times the fcking place had been sold) and we were off to the races.
Hateful process, beset by cnts.
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 10:10 - Sep 8 with 6404 views | derbyhoop |
I sold 40 over the last 6 years. But that was in the Limousin, where the average house costs 85 000€. Agent commission between 6 and 10%!
Now happily retired. |  |
| Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the Earth all one’s lifetime. (Mark Twain)
Find me on twitter @derbyhoop |
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 10:12 - Sep 8 with 6374 views | QPRSteve |
As Pierre-Joseph Proudhon said: "Property is theft!" |  | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 10:30 - Sep 8 with 6273 views | CamberleyR |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 09:50 - Sep 8 by Northernr |
Hmmm I used them to shift mine at the end of last year and, look, I guess they would tell you they got it sold, quickly, for the price I wanted. Still, I'd be very hesitant to recommend, and in fact haven't they just been absorbed into another group because their business model collapsed?
My situation was my mortgage came off its fix just as Liz and Kwasi were doing their thing, and housemate was moving out at same time, so my outgoing more than doubled to £2300 a month, in the space of about 6 weeks. Got the local agent round to value it to try and get a better rate and he gave us such a surprisingly decent price I said to him bring the fcking board round let's get it gone.
Then spoke to a few people who said don't do that, commission charges etc, just use one of the online peeps.
PurpleBricks couldn't do enough for us to start with, but if you don't want to pay up front you have to use their conveyancing team (which we didn't want to do cos we'd been told they were sht, and we had our own that we'd used before anyway). So we paid up front, at which point their interest in us and our house dropped off the side of a cliff. Also had the bizarre situation where smarmy bstrd no.1, who we dealt with first, fell off his motorbike, so PurpleBricks transferred the sale to smarmy bstrd no.2 for a week or so, only for smarmy bstrd no.1 to start ringing us up again once he was up and about asking why we'd gone with the other guy, we should be dealing with him, had smarmy bstrd no.2 been hassling us etc - mate, you're interchangeable wnkrs, just get on with it.
The girl they sent to do the viewings turned up with a fcking Chelsea badge on her lapel. She took the keys off me and turned to leave, I'm like "don't you want to look at the house?" "Oh, do you think I need to?" Well, aren't you fcking selling it?
They arranged a "viewing day" for the following Saturday (Coventry A last season), and thankfully a steady stream of interest came in during the week to the point where we had 14 viewings confirmed which I thought was very good.
So off I went to watch us lose at Coventry. Now, we've got one of those burglar alarm systems with cameras that track movement around the house so can watch on our phones and see a timeline of comings and goings etc, which of course Chelsea Twt didn't know. She turned up at midday and was gone by 1240. Two couples looked around. I sat in a pub in Coventry and watched them wander around themselves while she hung about downstairs on her phone. Fcking lazy cow.
One of the big things they'd told us in the sales pitch was "oh your local agent is only Monday to Friday, we'll do a viewing day Saturday and have all your feedback and offers ready to go Sunday morning". This was, of course, bolox. Had to wait until Monday for her feed back which was "absolutely fantastic day, super hectic and busy with a lot of walk ups, multiple people interested".
Fortunately for her, and us, one of the two couples who saw it liked it, offered at asking price, and we played that cool for about 45 seconds before snapping their hands off.
Then just the small matter of solicitors drawing out a sale between two people neither of whom were in a chain across five months because the electricity cupboard appeared as part of the neighbouring property on the land registry (as presumably it had done for the previous 60 fcking years and however many other times the fcking place had been sold) and we were off to the races.
Hateful process, beset by cnts.
This post has been edited by an administrator |
"Then just the small matter of solicitors drawing out a sale between two people neither of whom were in a chain across five months because the electricity cupboard appeared as part of the neighbouring property on the land registry (as presumably it had done for the previous 60 fcking years and however many other times the fcking place had been sold) and we were off to the races."
Sounds a bit similar to when I moved to Somerset from Farnborough two years ago. We weren't in a chain, our buyers were cash buyers and the house I was buying had been bought at auction and extended and done up. We used a small independent local agent in Farnborough for our sale who were absolutely great from start to finish.
The sale ended up taking five months due to a combination of two things. The house I was selling whilst being a private property was on an estate run by a management company (First Port, who are absolutely fcking useless) who took an eternity to get the necessary paperwork together for my buyer's solicitors.
Additionally, the house I was buying had a small flying freehold with part of one of the bedrooms overhanging next door's entrance porch. Their house also has flying freehold over ours with their back bedroom and our kitchen. The entire road only has ten houses and all are exactly the same re flying freeholds.
Now the bloke we were buying off who whilst seeming okay on first meeting him, turned out out to be an absolute c*nt. He'd bought the house at auction as I said and had almost certainly not read the legal pack. He thought it was going to be a nice, easy quick sale.
The house had last been sold in the 1950s. When he found he'd have to have extra legal work undertaken to get the flying freehold sorted out (which Virgin One my mortgage provider required) which was going to cost an extra two grand, he started getting arsey demanding that we pay half the legal costs, which we thought was taking liberties. We offered £500 as a goodwill gesture but he said no, he wanted £1000 or he was going to put the house back on the market.
He'd threatened this tactic a couple of times previously when our sale wasn't progressing as quickly as he wanted due to our incompetent management company so to keep him onside we reluctantly paid it. The sale completion went right to the wire, literally an hour before the close of play on the completion date and like Hayes says above, those five months were some of the most stressful for me and Mrs Camberley. [Post edited 8 Sep 2023 13:00]
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 10:35 - Sep 8 with 6210 views | Phildo |
i am actually a property lawyer (hopefully not one of the cnts)
On the ID front and checking peoples source of funds - lawyers hate it but the powers that be take away your practicing certificate if you are found to have fallen down on that. The levels we are supposed to go into are mad. Not to mention that every client has to be checked against sanctions lists terrorism etc. Its added a huge amount to the process.
At the moment it is taking the land registry two years to register a simple lease. Probate is taking something like 16 months at times to be granted. Every interaction with the government is fked.
Agents wise I would always advise using a local independent as generally their business is based on returning satisfied customers. All those online agents are run on a shoestring and yes purplebricks did go t1ts up a while ago - there are always more popping up though. the business model is stick it on rightmove and dont do much else really.
As to lawyers always go to the lowest rated google reviews. Some of the crp big factory firms have hundreds of suspiciously similar 5 star reviews but if you look at the 1 star ones you get the real story. If you go to a reputable firm you are looking at £1500ish per transaction. Again a lot of the volume firms will quote you about £800 but then put in a load of sneaky extras later on to get it up to around 2000 plus. So you end up paying more for a worse service. |  | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 10:47 - Sep 8 with 6105 views | Northernr |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 10:30 - Sep 8 by CamberleyR |
"Then just the small matter of solicitors drawing out a sale between two people neither of whom were in a chain across five months because the electricity cupboard appeared as part of the neighbouring property on the land registry (as presumably it had done for the previous 60 fcking years and however many other times the fcking place had been sold) and we were off to the races."
Sounds a bit similar to when I moved to Somerset from Farnborough two years ago. We weren't in a chain, our buyers were cash buyers and the house I was buying had been bought at auction and extended and done up. We used a small independent local agent in Farnborough for our sale who were absolutely great from start to finish.
The sale ended up taking five months due to a combination of two things. The house I was selling whilst being a private property was on an estate run by a management company (First Port, who are absolutely fcking useless) who took an eternity to get the necessary paperwork together for my buyer's solicitors.
Additionally, the house I was buying had a small flying freehold with part of one of the bedrooms overhanging next door's entrance porch. Their house also has flying freehold over ours with their back bedroom and our kitchen. The entire road only has ten houses and all are exactly the same re flying freeholds.
Now the bloke we were buying off who whilst seeming okay on first meeting him, turned out out to be an absolute c*nt. He'd bought the house at auction as I said and had almost certainly not read the legal pack. He thought it was going to be a nice, easy quick sale.
The house had last been sold in the 1950s. When he found he'd have to have extra legal work undertaken to get the flying freehold sorted out (which Virgin One my mortgage provider required) which was going to cost an extra two grand, he started getting arsey demanding that we pay half the legal costs, which we thought was taking liberties. We offered £500 as a goodwill gesture but he said no, he wanted £1000 or he was going to put the house back on the market.
He'd threatened this tactic a couple of times previously when our sale wasn't progressing as quickly as he wanted due to our incompetent management company so to keep him onside we reluctantly paid it. The sale completion went right to the wire, literally an hour before the close of play on the completion date and like Hayes says above, those five months were some of the most stressful for me and Mrs Camberley. [Post edited 8 Sep 2023 13:00]
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We'd actually clocked the leccy cupboard thing in the first week when we were getting the paperwork together - like you it was simply that next door's bedroom had a flying freehold over the top of it, we raised this with our solicitor right at the start in October and left them to it. Also like you it was on an estate of 70 other houses, all in pairs, all designed the same, all the same on the land registry, all changing hands quite happily until we get a dick solicitor on the other side who won't have it.
The buyer had a mortgage offer which expired on February 24, and obviously they weren't going to get one anywhere close to as good as that ever ever again so it needed doing by then.
Got in touch with our sideagain straight after Christmas asking if everything was ok, fobbed off.
Middle of January... same.
Suddenly, last week of Jan, an email from our side (instructed last week of October, offer accepted November 14).
Dear Mr Whittingham "we have reached your file".
Oh, have you, that's nice, for my £1,500. And what does it say?
Well, it says there's a problem with a flying freehold over your electricity cupboard which we need the land registry to correct.
Oh, does it? How interesting. How long will that take?
Well we can ask for it to be expedited by the land registry usually takes 6 weeks, conservative estimate.
That. Is. Fascinating.
We basically escaped that by repeatedly ringing around various numbers we could find for the land registry and ending up, by chance, getting hold of a brilliant woman who had our file on her desk, and begging her.
Like you the sale went through at 1130am on the last day, February 24.
And everybody (EVERYBODY) I've spoken to has just shrugged at me and gone "yeh, of course, that's how it works, that's just how it's done, solicitor has 1000 files on their desk and works through them in order, it always gets done at the last minute".
As ever, it must just be me who thinks this is all fcking batsht levels of crazy ways to go about things. | | | |
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 10:57 - Sep 8 with 6038 views | Juzzie |
I went through this process a couple of years ago and I expected it to be more complicated than from 15 years previous when I last did it and it was.
I won't bore everyone with the details but I would say our estate agents were a bunch of cnts. Bullshitted us from day one - "we have 12 people on our books right now who want a property like yours" yet every single one of the 10 people who came to look saw the house online as a result of RightMove or Zoopla, nothing from the estate agent. Lying pricks. There was other stuff too but it's too boring to go through.
Even when we did get an offer that we accepted and started going through due process they were clearly more on the side of the buyer than the seller, me, who is paying their fuking bill.
Our solicitor/conveyancer were brilliant though and happy to recommend them if it's allowed; RMNJ Solicitors.
Good luck. |  | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 11:09 - Sep 8 with 5988 views | Boston |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 10:35 - Sep 8 by Phildo |
i am actually a property lawyer (hopefully not one of the cnts)
On the ID front and checking peoples source of funds - lawyers hate it but the powers that be take away your practicing certificate if you are found to have fallen down on that. The levels we are supposed to go into are mad. Not to mention that every client has to be checked against sanctions lists terrorism etc. Its added a huge amount to the process.
At the moment it is taking the land registry two years to register a simple lease. Probate is taking something like 16 months at times to be granted. Every interaction with the government is fked.
Agents wise I would always advise using a local independent as generally their business is based on returning satisfied customers. All those online agents are run on a shoestring and yes purplebricks did go t1ts up a while ago - there are always more popping up though. the business model is stick it on rightmove and dont do much else really.
As to lawyers always go to the lowest rated google reviews. Some of the crp big factory firms have hundreds of suspiciously similar 5 star reviews but if you look at the 1 star ones you get the real story. If you go to a reputable firm you are looking at £1500ish per transaction. Again a lot of the volume firms will quote you about £800 but then put in a load of sneaky extras later on to get it up to around 2000 plus. So you end up paying more for a worse service. |
I have recently experienced selling a house and the probate process in London. While I wouldn't describe it as a nightmare, it is extremely slow and frustrating, especially when using a below par Welsh law firm. | |
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 11:55 - Sep 8 with 5801 views | Paddyhoops |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 09:50 - Sep 8 by Northernr |
Hmmm I used them to shift mine at the end of last year and, look, I guess they would tell you they got it sold, quickly, for the price I wanted. Still, I'd be very hesitant to recommend, and in fact haven't they just been absorbed into another group because their business model collapsed?
My situation was my mortgage came off its fix just as Liz and Kwasi were doing their thing, and housemate was moving out at same time, so my outgoing more than doubled to £2300 a month, in the space of about 6 weeks. Got the local agent round to value it to try and get a better rate and he gave us such a surprisingly decent price I said to him bring the fcking board round let's get it gone.
Then spoke to a few people who said don't do that, commission charges etc, just use one of the online peeps.
PurpleBricks couldn't do enough for us to start with, but if you don't want to pay up front you have to use their conveyancing team (which we didn't want to do cos we'd been told they were sht, and we had our own that we'd used before anyway). So we paid up front, at which point their interest in us and our house dropped off the side of a cliff. Also had the bizarre situation where smarmy bstrd no.1, who we dealt with first, fell off his motorbike, so PurpleBricks transferred the sale to smarmy bstrd no.2 for a week or so, only for smarmy bstrd no.1 to start ringing us up again once he was up and about asking why we'd gone with the other guy, we should be dealing with him, had smarmy bstrd no.2 been hassling us etc - mate, you're interchangeable wnkrs, just get on with it.
The girl they sent to do the viewings turned up with a fcking Chelsea badge on her lapel. She took the keys off me and turned to leave, I'm like "don't you want to look at the house?" "Oh, do you think I need to?" Well, aren't you fcking selling it?
They arranged a "viewing day" for the following Saturday (Coventry A last season), and thankfully a steady stream of interest came in during the week to the point where we had 14 viewings confirmed which I thought was very good.
So off I went to watch us lose at Coventry. Now, we've got one of those burglar alarm systems with cameras that track movement around the house so can watch on our phones and see a timeline of comings and goings etc, which of course Chelsea Twt didn't know. She turned up at midday and was gone by 1240. Two couples looked around. I sat in a pub in Coventry and watched them wander around themselves while she hung about downstairs on her phone. Fcking lazy cow.
One of the big things they'd told us in the sales pitch was "oh your local agent is only Monday to Friday, we'll do a viewing day Saturday and have all your feedback and offers ready to go Sunday morning". This was, of course, bolox. Had to wait until Monday for her feed back which was "absolutely fantastic day, super hectic and busy with a lot of walk ups, multiple people interested".
Fortunately for her, and us, one of the two couples who saw it liked it, offered at asking price, and we played that cool for about 45 seconds before snapping their hands off.
Then just the small matter of solicitors drawing out a sale between two people neither of whom were in a chain across five months because the electricity cupboard appeared as part of the neighbouring property on the land registry (as presumably it had done for the previous 60 fcking years and however many other times the fcking place had been sold) and we were off to the races.
Hateful process, beset by cnts.
This post has been edited by an administrator |
Truss still insists she was right about her economic policies and we were all wrong.
Jesus f**king wept! | | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 12:10 - Sep 8 with 5717 views | paulparker |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 10:47 - Sep 8 by Northernr |
We'd actually clocked the leccy cupboard thing in the first week when we were getting the paperwork together - like you it was simply that next door's bedroom had a flying freehold over the top of it, we raised this with our solicitor right at the start in October and left them to it. Also like you it was on an estate of 70 other houses, all in pairs, all designed the same, all the same on the land registry, all changing hands quite happily until we get a dick solicitor on the other side who won't have it.
The buyer had a mortgage offer which expired on February 24, and obviously they weren't going to get one anywhere close to as good as that ever ever again so it needed doing by then.
Got in touch with our sideagain straight after Christmas asking if everything was ok, fobbed off.
Middle of January... same.
Suddenly, last week of Jan, an email from our side (instructed last week of October, offer accepted November 14).
Dear Mr Whittingham "we have reached your file".
Oh, have you, that's nice, for my £1,500. And what does it say?
Well, it says there's a problem with a flying freehold over your electricity cupboard which we need the land registry to correct.
Oh, does it? How interesting. How long will that take?
Well we can ask for it to be expedited by the land registry usually takes 6 weeks, conservative estimate.
That. Is. Fascinating.
We basically escaped that by repeatedly ringing around various numbers we could find for the land registry and ending up, by chance, getting hold of a brilliant woman who had our file on her desk, and begging her.
Like you the sale went through at 1130am on the last day, February 24.
And everybody (EVERYBODY) I've spoken to has just shrugged at me and gone "yeh, of course, that's how it works, that's just how it's done, solicitor has 1000 files on their desk and works through them in order, it always gets done at the last minute".
As ever, it must just be me who thinks this is all fcking batsht levels of crazy ways to go about things. |
Stick another one in for all estate agents are kunts list
Tried to sell our gaff a few years ago and had the misfortune to use connells , the head guy came round to say he could sell our house within a month and when he saw my “ welcome to loftus road “ sign in the man cave told me he was a QPR fan and that to trust him …,
What followed turned into a nightmare, as our dedicated agent failed to turn up not once but twice to viewings meaning we had to show our potential buyers round , they then failed to follow up on any clients who came round as well and then told us we had the property valued to high to which my reply was “you fcuking valued it you prat “ as our onwards purchase was also connells he then said that if we didn’t secure the mortgage with their guy then he couldn’t guarantee our offer would stick , when I informed him I was a mortgage broker myself he then tried to back track and say he was misquoted
In the end we didn’t move and it resulted in me calling the fella a massive bellend and not to ever darken my door again
The only thing we did agree on however was how Sh1t Todd Kane was |  |
| And Bowles is onside, Swinburne has come rushing out of his goal , what can Bowles do here , onto the left foot no, on to the right foot
That’s there that’s two, and that’s Bowles
Brian Moore
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 12:34 - Sep 8 with 5626 views | RBlock |
All reminds me of buying my first house recently.
Got our very good mortgage offer in May at 2.59% and had our offer accepted. Firstly, the mortgage company then try to withdraw our mortgage offer because their valuation survey said they couldn't find anything comparable - this is a one bed maisonette in Ealing by the way, so clearly just trying to renege on the rates they'd offered, given rates had increased significantly between when they gave us the AIP and when we put in the offer. Took three months of our mortgage broker arguing the toss before they agreed to honour the original offer.
Kick on and searches come in - turns out that the seller didn't own half the garden, despite advertising the flat as such. Took months to rectify this, during which the seller exchanged the garden from the upstairs leaseholder in return for a share of the freehold, which he had to purchase from the freeholder to correct the issue. Trying to get everything wrapped up before Christmas as our mortgage offer expired in the first week of Feb 23, at which point our solicitors disappear off the face of the earth. Finally complete within 5 days of our mortgage offer expiring, knowing that had it not gone through, we'd have had to slash our budget as our rates would have near doubled.
Glad that's all over, and we can move on to the smooth and peaceful process of dealing with contractors and planning permission... |  | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 12:44 - Sep 8 with 5584 views | Juzzie |
OK, i will add some more boring stuff! Just to help make people aware!
Our estate agent told us they would put the house on the market for £475k and it should get near that. "OK" I said. I felt £450k was probably more realistic to start off with but if they think they can get nearer to 475 than to 450 who am I to complain.
Within 2 weeks they said "it's too high, you should bring it down to 420 then hope for a sale of around 400". Me and my missus had a full-blow row down the phone with them, they set the amount at 475, not us.
"It's an uncertain market" (this was the summer of 2020 so right in the middle of the pandemic). "Yeah, I know it is but I still don't expect a drop of 50-75k in just 2 weeks. 6-12 months maybe but not 2 weeks"
"I've been doing this job 11 years, I know what I'm talking about" etc etc.
"Then why did you pitch it at 475 starting price?". No answer.
Then literally a few days later the government announced the stamp duty drop which suddenly changed everything.
I phoned up the slimy tw@t and asked him if he knew this was coming.
"No, we had no idea"
"Exactly. So you could have cost me 50k had we agreed to reduce the price when I felt it wasn't right to do so"
House sold for £440k in the end (even though they were pushing us to agree on 430 which we refused) so I seemed to have a better idea of it's price than this cnt who does this day in, day out for 11 years.
They were clearly trying to drive the price down to speed up the sale.
10 sales a month at a lower selling price yields more income than 7 sales a month at a higher price so all this stuff about "estate agents will sell your house for the highest price possible because it's in their own interest as they will get more money" is bollox because it's all about turnover of sales, they don't want things to drag on and a lower selling price will avoid that. Don't fall for this trap.
Then later on they were trying to get me to exchange on the contract of the sale of the house before we we were ready to do the same on the place we were buying. "you could lose the sale" they said. Bullschit, all they wanted was to guarantee their fee because if the purchase of our other house fell through we are legally committed to the sale of our house and they didn't flinch when I said we could end up in short-term rented accommodation (two adults, two young children and a cat) while we look for somewhere else to buy.
Our conveyancer said to absolutely not to agree to it, which I didn't, so glad my gut instinct held strong.
This is why I said earlier they were more on the side of the buyer. They put all the pressure on us to accomodate to his wishes rather than the other way around and were even willing for us to potentially be in difficult rented circumstances.
Another trick they pull is you end up talking to lots of different people in the office (the main one was called Chelsea and she too was a cnt) so it wears you down as you have to repeat everything over and over again and the idea is to get you to agree to something that may not be in your favour. Another estate agent who I used for another sale in a different part of London said it was a trick some use, particularly the bigger ones who have a higher staff count.
In the end I told them I only want to deal with one person and only by email (so everything was in writing) and not by phone, which of course has no comeback.
it was amazing how all the tricks & stunts they used over the phone suddenly disappeared and the email conversations were more professional (sic).
Snake oil salesmen, the lot of them (well, apart from the ones I used to sell my previous flat, they were great).
Seriously, don't take anything they say as verbatim or agree to anything on the spot. Listen to what they say then go away and research before responding and do as much as possible by email so it's all in writing.
[Post edited 8 Sep 2023 13:10]
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 12:53 - Sep 8 with 5542 views | RangersDave |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 10:57 - Sep 8 by Juzzie |
I went through this process a couple of years ago and I expected it to be more complicated than from 15 years previous when I last did it and it was.
I won't bore everyone with the details but I would say our estate agents were a bunch of cnts. Bullshitted us from day one - "we have 12 people on our books right now who want a property like yours" yet every single one of the 10 people who came to look saw the house online as a result of RightMove or Zoopla, nothing from the estate agent. Lying pricks. There was other stuff too but it's too boring to go through.
Even when we did get an offer that we accepted and started going through due process they were clearly more on the side of the buyer than the seller, me, who is paying their fuking bill.
Our solicitor/conveyancer were brilliant though and happy to recommend them if it's allowed; RMNJ Solicitors.
Good luck. |
Cheers mate, Just e-mailed RMNJ, and await their reply.
Best
Dave | |
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 13:05 - Sep 8 with 5488 views | Third_Division_South |
What gets me about the solicitors is that they still do everything by post. That means that every time there’s a query the solicitor drafts a letter which goes to a secretary to type, then it gets posted, lands at the bottom of the other solicitor’s in tray and gets looked at days later, sometimes the query is only a straightforward yes/no. The whole thing takes ages, why, in this day and age can’t they use email? | | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 13:18 - Sep 8 with 5426 views | Northernr |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 13:05 - Sep 8 by Third_Division_South |
What gets me about the solicitors is that they still do everything by post. That means that every time there’s a query the solicitor drafts a letter which goes to a secretary to type, then it gets posted, lands at the bottom of the other solicitor’s in tray and gets looked at days later, sometimes the query is only a straightforward yes/no. The whole thing takes ages, why, in this day and age can’t they use email? |
Ours blatantly didn't even start looking at ours until end of January having been instructed end of October. If they had they'd have picked up the issue we advised them of... at the end of October. Having started at the end of January it was all duly wrapped up by the deadline of February 24.
I came out of the whole thing with the Dragons's Den pitch for a company that guarantees to complete your conveyancing within four weeks for a flat fee of £1k. You wouldn't so much disrupt the market as bring it to a complete close. My solicitor friends laugh at this and say even at £1.4k they make absolutely fck all off conveyancing, it's a ball ache, and the only way to make it pay is this ridiculous system of one person with a pile of 500 files on their desk, dealing with them each in turn and refusing to change the order, with every deal completed roughly 20 minutes prior to its expiry. | | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 13:27 - Sep 8 with 5404 views | CroydonCaptJack |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 09:35 - Sep 8 by Hayesender |
Wait until they make it Illegal to sell a house without a heat pump, which is gonna cost thousands to install, and doesn't even work very well.
Agree with you though. Sold up just over a year ago, and between that and buying my new gaff, it was probably the most stressful time of my life.
All I can say is good luck |
I heard about this this morning. From a Heating and Engineer guy who told me they don't work very well in houses that are not new. You will not be able to replace a standard bolier in a few years time despite the fact the new ones don't work well. All part of the net zero macro box ticking. Crazy.
Sure, it's a good idea for the future but only when it's practical. [Post edited 15 Sep 2023 10:54]
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 14:01 - Sep 8 with 5283 views | Benny_the_Ball |
I bought 1 property through a friend who was an estate agent so no issues on that front. Very simple scenario involving no chain. Despite this the contract sat with the seller for 5 months. Bored of waiting, I took a day off to visit my solicitor. It turned out the seller's solicitor was on the same street, so I popped over. When I asked his PA to speak with him, she lied and said that he was out of the office. However, I could hear noise coming from his office so I ignored her and walked in. Sure enough, there he was, sat in his chesterfield armchair behind a mountain of paperwork. I explained who I was and what I was after. He literally reached into the pile of paperwork, pulled out the contract, signed it, and handed it over. I then hand delivered it to my solicitor, who finalised the sale within a week.
On another occasion, I was interested in a beautiful regency apartment by the sea. I went to view it at the beginning of October. I liked the flat so I made an opening offer. To my surprise, this was accepted. However, it was on the proviso that I complete by the 23 October. Naturally, I was suspicious as completing within 3 weeks is unheard of. After some investigation, it turned out that the entire block was suffering from subsidence. The freeholder (who lived in the penthouse) had sent a notification of works to all leaseholders. The work would take 3 years to complete, costing each leaseholder £60k per quarter. First instalment was due on the 24 October. Naturally, the estate agent denied all knowledge of this. |  | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 14:06 - Sep 8 with 5257 views | Benny_the_Ball |
RangersDave, take some solace in the fact that your divorce is settled. I have a few friends going through divorces at the moment. The pains of conveyancing are trivial in comparison. Hope it all works out well for you and all concerned. | | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 14:28 - Sep 8 with 5186 views | kernowhoop |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 13:27 - Sep 8 by CroydonCaptJack |
I heard about this this morning. From a Heating and Engineer guy who told me they don't work very well in houses that are not new. You will not be able to replace a standard bolier in a few years time despite the fact the new ones don't work well. All part of the net zero macro box ticking. Crazy.
Sure, it's a good idea for the future but only when it's practical. [Post edited 15 Sep 2023 10:54]
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If the Energy Bill goes through, you could find yourself sent to Wandsworth for not having the government-approved heating. But, not to worry - I hear that there is a way out of the place if you are reasonably nimble. | | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 14:31 - Sep 8 with 5161 views | TomS |
Add me to the ever growing list of people whose experience with estate agents saw them for what they are, not what they claim to be.
Many, many years ago when I was looking around for my first home, I attended a viewing. I liked the property a lot, and told the estate agent that was prepared to go higher than the asking price, subject to my surveyor inspecting it and giving it the all clear. His response was enlightening. He replied that he already had an offer at the asking price and that he was going to conclude the deal with that bidder. It was a lightbulb moment for me. He wasn't representing the best interests of the seller, he was only interested in generating his commission. An extra few grand added to the sale price, which would necessitate delaying the closing of the sale by a few weeks, wasn't going to generate much more in commission for him, so he was personally better off focusing his efforts in maximising the volume of sales in as short a period as possible.
Armed with this experience, I used it to my advantage a few weeks later when I was successful in buying a home. After viewing it, I rang the auctioneer and told him I'd meet the asking price. I kind of suspected that I could have been the only bidder on it, so acted accordingly. He replied that the seller was looking for more than the asking price. I told him I'd increase my offer by five hundred quid, which definitely wasn't the figure he was expecting. He said he talk to the seller and I received a phone call a few minutes later to confirm that I had it.
Utter leeches. |  | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 14:52 - Sep 8 with 5101 views | stowmarketrange |
I think the worst part now is the bit where a property states that it’s offers over the stated price.How are we supposed to know what to bid?And it just seems like another scheme to extract as much as they can from each sale.B@stards. |  | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 14:56 - Sep 8 with 5078 views | Northernr |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 14:52 - Sep 8 by stowmarketrange |
I think the worst part now is the bit where a property states that it’s offers over the stated price.How are we supposed to know what to bid?And it just seems like another scheme to extract as much as they can from each sale.B@stards. |
This was one of the suggestions put to us by PurplePricks. They explained that if you're looking for let's say £310k, you put it on at 'offers in excess of 300k' because then it comes up in more online searches. Most people would set their RightMove search at a round number like 300k, so you put it on at that to appear in their searches, whereas if you put it on at 320k expecting somebody to offer 310k it narrows the number of search results. | | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 15:09 - Sep 8 with 5034 views | kensalriser |
Just ignore it and offer what you're prepared to pay. It's borrowed from the long standing Scottish system which is quite different.
And wait until you're in the position to buy something with a substantial portion in cash. Money laundering regs, which don't seem to stop actual serious money launderers (over 100,000 properties in the UK are still owned anonymously through shell companies), now require that we prove our innocence. So forget all that advice about throwing away financial records after 6 years, you now need to prove that your life savings were earned legitimately to be able to do anything with them. |  |
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