Take it off the market and start again.
I wouldn’t be happy with my estate agent pressuring me to taking a sale, which means they’ll get their commission sooner, nor would I be happy about potential conflict of interest regarding shared clients in the same potential chain. And I deffo wouldn’t be happy about them being dodgy about communication, taking my property off their website and changing the signage without my instructions.
I don’t think I can do that until the existing contract is up in 6 weeks. But yes it does feel like I am in the middle of a dog’s breakfast!
Don’t understand the up in 6 weeks contract thing.
Tell them you don’t accept the cash offer due to change of circumstances. If I were you I’d get my magnifying glasses and dictionary out and start ploughing through some fine print.
First rule of buy or selling a house: don’t trust the estate agent!
The good news is you are unlikely to be bound by the sale until you have exchanged contracts (with the buyer, not the estate agent).
If I were in your situation I would send the estate agent a stern email telling them you are not happy with how they have have handled things (not told you the offer amount/you felt they pressured you into taking the offer/that you feel they have not been advising you properly, etc) and that you have changed your mind about accepting the offer. Tell them if the sold sign is not removed and the house put back onto the market within one week you will consider this a breach of contract and will be terminating your agreement with them and will find another agent.
That may or may not do the trick, but like Dex said it may be worth considering just finding another agent - you could book an appointment with one and they may be able to advise. Just try to get all important communication by or confirmed by email so that if they advise you incorrectly you have evidence. Alternatively you could get in touch with a solicitor, many of them often give you the initial appointment free - if they are a conveyancing solicitor they may well want to be in your good books as you might need them for a purchase of your own…
Azz is correct, and has put it with somewhat more erudition than I.
You need to check the fine print to determine how long it has to be before you could be rid of the current agent.
I agree with Azz, A stern letter ,I mean how can they put sold STC when you have no contact with them , They are taking it out of your hands . To me I would feel like its dodgy dealing going on .
I understand your contract time , I had a set time before it ended , I was not happy with my estate agents who did very little to keep me up to date , To the point I went in to their Office and asked whether the last offer was going ahead , it was at this time they told me the buyers couldn’t get a Mortgage…
I bid my time till the contract ran out ,but there was a clause which was if I went with another agent and sold within a certain time they could get fees from the sale …
I made sure it didnt go on the market till the time expired…
Check your small print , bide your time … and dont sign anything under pressure .
I don’t know the time scale in which you want to sell your property Annie i.e. quick sale?
Are you relying on the sale of your property in order to purchase another property (chain)?
My advice is never to rush such an important transaction, as Azz says, take your time to read the smallprint on your agreement with the estate agent, and always remember…It’s your property you are selling, be assertive, you don’t have to take any nonsense from third party agents…
First of all don’t accept the agents fee for selling they more than lightly accept a lower one just tell them. even 1/2per cent off will save hundreds of £. Next do a no agent no fee. that is if you sell without an agents help, ie advertising they can’t claim a fee. Example selling to a family member or friend, this is why you don’t want a board outside you house with for sale on it.
Having moved 5 times we know how stressfull it is
Apparently it’s now normal practice to put sold with STC in tiny letters next to it, when all they have is the acceptance of an offer.
I really don’t know what to do or whose offer to accept because both offers have potential problems.
How have people managed to cope with several moves? I guess it gets easier with experience?
I think you should reject the cash offer out of hand now. They may come back with one more suitable. If the agency aren’t happy, then they can terminate the contract if they want.
If not, then the other one will still be lurking about and you don’t need to accept it yet either. This will mean that your house will then go on the market again ( with ads), and the estate agent will actually have to do some more work for its fee. Bless them.
It’s a minefield that we trod a few times in our earlier years of marriage. We didn’t have much trouble with estate agents but always tended to go with smaller independent ones. They just seemed a bit more out to please. Even then, nothing is certain until contracts are exchanged.
One one occasion, we could have got more for the house but decided to go with the cash buyer rather than go into a chain with another buyer. Chains can always break for one reason or another and then the whole thing has to start again with another buyer. Not saying that is always going to be the case but us going with the cash buyer was a personal choice at the time.
In our case, the person in the chain actually came around to see us and argued (quite angrily) on the doorstep to try and get us to agree to their offered higher price but we’d already given word to the cash buyer and that was that. We could only refer them back to the estate agent who was handling the sale.
Surveys are another step where, if anything is found wrong, the buyer will try to knock the price down to fix the surveyors findings. We always stood firm because if the buyer really wants the house, they will pay the price. All subject to personal decision at the time though and there will always be individual circumstances in play,
Survey fees can be wasted if a chain breaks. The house that you are moving to that seemed certain to be yours (survey paid) becomes unavailable due to the collapse of the chain. Chains can go without a hitch and we have had that too but it can be worth careful thought if a cash buyer comes along. It might depend on how much less they are offering. Whatever, the agent should keep you posted every step and twist and turn of the way. As said, a minefield and a stressful one at that.
Hi, Annie. I feel your pain; we put the for sale sign in front of our house a while back, and it is still on the market. I expect that we will take it off the market and re-list it in the spring when mortgage interest rates are lower. I avoid listing during the holidays lest I spend my days with a mop and dust rag in one hand and a bucket of wassail in the other, scrubbing walls and mumbling about running off to join a convent … 
We do things a little differently here, and adopting these strategies might help you too - or it might be of no help at all 
Here goes:
First of all, the only person we speak with is our selling agent with whom we signed a contract. We never speak to buyers’ agents or the potential buyers - or anyone else for that matter. All questions are routed through her. That limited communication prevents any undue pressure or shenanigans. There have also been places we lived where the market was so competitive that we removed the sign altogether to prevent a stream of people ringing the doorbell.
The second is that the “Sold” sign may not put up until the sale has closed. If the house is under contract, the agent may put up an “Under Contract” sign, but we made the stipulation that the house could continue to be shown up to the point that the house is closed. This is very important if you have a contingent offer if the buyer must sell their house to buy yours. We always limit a contingency offer to 30 days, because we know that a contingency sale tends to reduce the interest since people don’t want to get their hopes up. That motivates the buyer and agents to get a move on. If anyone comes to the house (very rare), we have our agent’s business cards on hand to hand them. Again, that narrows communication agent to agent.
The third is that when the agent’s contract expires, we shift the agreement to month-to-month. Knowing that the agent can lose the listing (and therefore her fee), it keeps the fire lit under her in case she loses motivation.
The fourth, and the most important, is that we make sure that the agents’ fees are negotiable. When we sold our last property, I had a number that we needed to make. When the buyer came in low and wouldn’t budge, and neither agent was effective in negotiating, we asked the agents to bring their fee percentage down so we could reach that number. Real estate agents are ridiculously overpaid here, each splitting 5-6% of the sale price, so knocking it down a little didn’t hurt much.
I am a pleaser who likes everyone to be happy, but I learned long ago that you have to steel yourself to be tough with agents. Set a number in your head, and stick with that and don’t be afraid to put conditions in the contract.
Two can play the no communication game. If I were you, I would consider just sitting on this for a few days with a simple email to your agent that you are on hold.
The good news is that it sounds like your place is very desirable and that you’ll soon have a contract. Good luck!
I have sold 5 houses since buying my 1st and each time I sold I did so via a decent advert in a nationwide newspaper. I would not trust an estate agent if he was the last man on earth. My 1st sale sold within minutes of the interested party arriving to view and then because the ad ran for two days, we had to ignore the phone due to the high interest generated. For subsequent sales, I ran a single advert just for one appearance and sold very quickly. IMO agents are crooks.
Some good ideas to mull over here Annie, good luck with the sale…
Mom those are great strategies. After silence I’ve been bamboozled today into picking one buyer. I went for the cash buyer. But I’m very upset with the persistent and bullying approach of the agents and if there is any reduction in the price I will withdraw from the sale because I feel stitched up. I am asking the agency to continue to market the property. My problem is that I’ve no control or information on whether they will receive enquiries or just don’t pass them on. Who knows what really goes on. I wish I had signed up with a different agency.
I was talking to a friend who recounted his story of how when he tried to buy a house years ago agents would not let him view the property. I’m wondering whether it was a similar shenanigans with the vendor thinking the property was still being marketed and the agent not accepting view requests (but pretending to market) and then telling the vendor they had to accept an earlier offer…
It sounds as though you have a far more flexible system in the US, but also far more lucrative for agents, so I guess you are far more able to make them work for your business.
Thanks OGF I’m losing the will to live. I need a break from this nonsense . I should have just ended the call today. Or not answered the phone.
LD I guess that used to be a great strategy. Unfortunately with the demise of newsprint as a medium people are directed by clicks and clicks are controlled by businesses.
crikey …I hadn’t considered that buyers can turn up on the doorstep but I guess they do know where you live! Good job there’s a ring doorbell.
I’m seeing my solicitor this week Azz and will ask for advice - thanks for the tip.
At least he will have your best interests at heart Annie, more than can be said for the cutthroat house market and it’s avaricious agents.
