estate agents selling houses not ready to be sold

telecaster

I wasted 3 months earlier this year trying to buy a second hand property which ultimately wasn't ready to be sold due to the various planning anomalies associated with the house. The move ultimately fell through weeks after I had paid the full deposit (which was EVENTUALLY returned to me).

I am now 2 and half months in to a similar scenario. Sale agreed with the vendor, deposit paid, my side of the contracts signed - but again it transpires there are planning issues and it looks like I may have wasted another 3 months.

Another 6 weeks was wasted in between these two properties as we were messed around with yet another which we had sale agreed on, but that's another story (on market for 4 months, then our bid is accepted, but the sellers cousin buys the house the next day!)

The first 2 houses simply are not ready for the market in my opinion. Nobody could have bought these properties because there was too much uncertainty and contradiction in relation to the status of planning permission on them. Is there not an onus on the estate agent to establish that the properties they represent are ready to be sold rather than stringing people along for months before it all falls through?

Supercell

Tbh, you may have been extremely lucky.

Property prices are stagnent at best and more likely are falling, you might be able to afford a far better place now with much less of the messing.
Its a buyers market out there by all accounts.

Paulw

That depends on where you are trying to buy. Many places prices are still increasing, although at a slower pace.

As for selling, well, it's really mad when estate agents try to do that. It should be down to the solicitor of the party selling the property to verify that all documents are ready.

jdivision

Auctioneers can only do what the seller tells them to do. Legally, they're not allowed point out such problems because their duty is to the seller. They want that changed themselves but govt won't. I'm not an estate agent and not a huge fan of them but the fault there is with the seller, not the agent

antoinolachtnai

Welcome to the housing market. That's just how it works.

You have had a pretty tough run though. So you had signed even though there were planning issues? Were they not apparent before you signed? Surprising the solicitor didn't find them sooner.

Antoin.

telecaster

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Welcome to the housing market. That's just how it works.

You have had a pretty tough run though. So you had signed even though there were planning issues? Were they not apparent before you signed? Surprising the solicitor didn't find them sooner.

Antoin.

Yeah I couldn't really care less about the planning issues and would gladly deal with whatever needs attention if only the gimps would let me close. Apparently the banks are little more fussy than me though.