Bidding - sale agreed but we weren't told!

V

Voda

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We put a bid on a house before Christmas. When we hadn't heard anything back about it by January, I contacted the EA who said our bid was still the only one and they would contact us if anything changed.

At the weekend, I drove by the house and was shocked to see a sale agreed sign on it! Nobody contacted us from the EA to say there had even been any other bids, let alone ask us if we wanted to change our bid to compete.

Is this common?? I'm furious about it and if I thought for one minute my EA was behaving in the same way, I'd be appalled.
 
If no satisfactory explanation from EA, you are well within you're rights to contact the vendor directly. Similar situation was shown on the Primetime documentary on EA's, where the EA allowed a close associate to sale agree at a low level even though there was another interested party. Interested party found out, went to the vendor and sale agreed immediately!
 
My husband is ringing them today about it - I'll know more later about what they said, but at the end of the day, what difference will that make. It is sale agreed!
 
Voda said:
My husband is ringing them today about it - I'll know more later about what they said, but at the end of the day, what difference will that make. It is sale agreed!
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You can still contact the seller directly and explain you have not been given a chance to better your initial bid .... I am sure the seller will call the EA very promptly!

And "Sale agreed" means absolutely nothing in this country as any party can bail out at any time until contracts are signed and exchanged.
 
Voda said:
We put a bid on a house before Christmas. When we hadn't heard anything back about it by January, I contacted the EA who said our bid was still the only one and they would contact us if anything changed.

At the weekend, I drove by the house and was shocked to see a sale agreed sign on it! Nobody contacted us from the EA to say there had even been any other bids, let alone ask us if we wanted to change our bid to compete.

Is this common?? I'm furious about it and if I thought for one minute my EA was behaving in the same way, I'd be appalled.
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This is my experience of what can happen.

I was involved in selling a house last year. Asking price was fair for the house at the time and agent was informed to tell bidders that not a cent below asking price would be accepted.

Two interested parties came on the scene around the same time, first offered €20,000 below asking price. Second party offered €18,000 below. Both told that nothing less than asking price would be accepted. Second party was first to come back and offer asking price and was offfered and got the house. Vendor asked that first party not be contacted about sale agreed as he was insulted by first bid.
 
davidoco said:
This is my experience of what can happen.

Vendor asked that first party not be contacted about sale agreed as he was insulted by first bid.
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IMO this is a very petty attitude as the first party may have come up with a better offer if they had been contacted. Very often the first bid is a tentative one. The Vendor must have been a very sensitive soul. :rolleyes:
 
Apologies for not replying yesterday - I had no net access.
Basically my husband was on to the EA for about 10 minutes giving out. He said the EA tried to fob him off initially but eventually was very apologetic.

He gave no reason as to why we were not contacted. He said, 'oh but you bid under the asking price and it went for a lot more than that'. For the record, we bid less than 2k under the asking price and made it quite clear at the time that this was just an opening bid and we would reconsider it if anyone else joined the process. At no stage during the initial bid or my subsequent phone call were we told we weren't being considered because of the price we offered. The EA even acknowledged to my husband that nobody is offering asking price anymore - everyone is bidding under first of all and going from there.

I know we can contact the vendor directly, but to be honest, I found the whole thing so upsetting, I do not want to have any dealings with this EA again. I'm heavily pregnant and house hunting is stressful enough without having to deal with this type of EA. Needless to say, even if our dream house came on the market for half the price, we would not consider even viewing it if it was this shower of w**kers...
 
If this EA did something underhand then you owe it to all the other struggling purchasers out there to not let them get away with it. If I was you I would carry this further and I would try to enjoy the battle. You may not get (or want) the house now but do not let them get away with this sort of action. This property has probably gone to a buddy.
 
Woods, my thoughts exactly.

To my mind the EA has not represented the vendor correctly. There may be a case where the vendor asked for you not to be contacted for some reason but I doubt it.

If it was me, I would contact the vendor directly and let them know the story. (what harm can it do?) I'm sure they would be very interested to find out that there was another potential bidder out there that they were not informed of by the EA.

I'm don't know much about EAs but surely if they do not represent the vendor correctly they are in breech of contract? Anyone know?
 
Sorry to hear about that situation. I am wondering if the other bidder is a cash buyer and you have a house sell before you can complete the purchase. The vendor may want a quick cash sale and is not willing to get into a chain of buyers. Quite common situation.
Can't blame the E.A if he is performing as instructed.
 
Voda you should consider speaking with the Vendor anyway. Just let them know what happened. Maybe they instructed the E.A. to act like this but there is a good chance they didn't. If the Vendor does accept your offer then you won't have to deal with E.A. (apart from giving them a booking deposit) and any queries will be dealt with through your solicitor. Its worth a shot if you are still interested in the house. Don't let E.A. put you off!!!
 
I appreciate all your responses on this. I don't think it's a viable argument that the vendor may have instructed them one way or the other because at the end of the day, when I made the bid and followed up, we were not told of any such conditions. In fact, the EA was very happy to have a bid as it was during the height of the recent sales slump (late 2006/early 2007). If the vendor wanted to take an offer from a cash purchaser, the EA simply had to inform us of this.

While this is the kind of thing I would normally fight tooth and nail about, as mentioned, my circumstances are a little tricky at the mo, due to pregnancy (I'm supposed to be avoiding stress!), so to be honest, I don't think I have the energy to fight this battle. We've enough on our plate selling our own property and buying another...

Moderator - am I allowed to mention the EA, just to warn others??
 
Voda said:
Moderator - am I allowed to mention the EA, just to warn others??
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No. Posters can PM you if they want more detail. Please be aware that posts may be removed/deleted by moderators if they contain profanities. Please edit your previous post.
 
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