Can Estate Agent withhold Potential Buyer's details?

M

Muddi

Guest
We received an offer on our house and Estate Agent now says the potential buyer will not return their calls. I would like to try ring the buyer myself but the Estate Agent says she can't give me the buyer's number? Is this true? Can they withhold this information?
I worked through another Estate Agent when selling my house a couple of year's ago and had direct access to the buyer.
 
Why do you want to contact the buyer directly anyway? Did you not hire the estate agent to deal with these matters for you. Personally if i was a buyer and started getting calls from a vendor trying to pressure me into buying i would run a mile.
 
Yes I did hire the Estate Agent to handle these matters, however, when my Estate Agent nevers calls with an update from a viewing and only calls after receiving a text from me asking for an update, I am not confident I can trust their negotiations skills. You should read the article in to-day's Irish Times Property section.
 
If you don't have confidence in your estate agent why don't you move to someone you have confidence in or go down the DIY route.
 
I feel your frustration but agree with dazza21ie, if I was contacted by the vendor I would find it off putting and strange. I find it hard to believe that an EA would be not be falling over himself to push a sale through especially if an offer were accepted, I would think things are difficult out there at the moment.
 
Hi,

It is a complete no no to contact vendor direct in my opinion put pressure on your EA to do that. You could turn a potential buyer away.

Angela59
 
Muddi - the best thing to do is change EA. How can you trust somebody that is selling something they don't own and then won't report to you. Any offer that was made and accepted should be followed up to the offerer and vendor. Be careful that the EA isn't waiting for you to drop the price and then pass the info on to his mates.
 
If you contact the buyer, they might assume you are desperate and drop their offer immediately. Or they could find it strange and walk away.

The EA works for you so sack them if you are not happy. There are plently more around who will do this for you
 
Yes I did hire the Estate Agent to handle these matters, however, when my Estate Agent nevers calls with an update from a viewing and only calls after receiving a text from me asking for an update, I am not confident I can trust their negotiations skills. You should read the article in to-day's Irish Times Property section.
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I think its quite a leap to suggest that an EA not ringing you directly after each viewing makes him a bad negotiator, it is the purchaser that he is negotiating with. It sounds like the purchaser has either changed their mind and like an awful lot of people rather than tell the EA they will keep ignoring calls until he gives up. The other possibility is that they simply cannot be reached at the moment and just keep trying. The EA would be reluctant in handing over the details to you because you could try and do a deal behind his back and he would lose his commission.

Be careful that the EA isn't waiting for you to drop the price and then pass the info on to his mates.
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Theres nothing to suggest that this is the case. An EA can't get through to the potential purchaser and it triggers 1.He is a bad negotiator. 2. He could be trying to scam you and sell to his 'mates'!. How about the real possibility 3. The potential purchaser is unavailable or uninterested.

The EA works for you so sack them if you are not happy.
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Exactly, although your not quite their employer.
 
As a purchaser I would be very annoyed if a seller were given my number - that's personal information.
 
I'm pretty sure that the EA requires the permission of the person making the offer before they can inform the vendor of their name/details.

Data Protection Act probably.
 
The EA would not normally contact you after every viewing. There's no point unless the people actually make an offer. The people who made the offer may have changed their minds and found something else since. The only time you will get to see who is buying your house is when their name and address is supplied to your solicitor having agreed the sale price and booking deposit is paid. And the only way you will know if the buyer is serious is when they sign the contract and hand over the 10% deposit.
 
Hi,

After every viewing my EA let's me know what people had to say be it good or bad and I would rather be kept informed - if there was anything I could work on with regard to making the house look better I'd take it on board. I think it is important for the EA to let you know what people are thinking or saying as otherwise you're in the dark.
 
sadie said:
The EA would not normally contact you after every viewing. There's no point unless the people actually make an offer. The people who made the offer may have changed their minds and found something else since. The only time you will get to see who is buying your house is when their name and address is supplied to your solicitor having agreed the sale price and booking deposit is paid. And the only way you will know if the buyer is serious is when they sign the contract and hand over the 10% deposit.
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We are currently trying to sell our house and have had 2 viewings with 2 different EA's, and each time i had to contact them for an update, i think it is important for the EA to contact the seller to let them know if there is anything that we could change that would increase the prospects of sale in the future, after our first viewing, i contacted the EA and she told me that there was an issue regarding neighbours, i told her that they were leaving 2 weeks later, of course perhaps if she had asked me the question after the viewing, the house could have been sold? however this is off topic.

with reference to the actual question, in the past we had placed an offer with the EA and then decided not to go ahead with it in the end, and they did try non stop to contact us until we were sure that we did not want to go through with it and let her know, then again, it was only 2 days! as a potential purchaser i would totally not agree with the EA handing out my details, and to be honest its pointless, why should the EA lose out on his 1.5-2% by handing you the details? if your going to hire an EA, don't do there job, and pay them for it too! chances are if the potential purchasers haven't bothered to contact him and tell them they aren't interested anymore, they wouldn't be anyway impressed with a call from the vendor, it would be like the EA is sending the heavies round!
 
Sounds like the potential buyer has lost interest in your house. Simple as that. Nothing you can do about it.
 
The agent is correct not to give you the potential purchasers number - I intend buying in the near future and if I got a call direct from the vendor my first thought would be that this person is desperate to sell and how can I use that to my advantage?
 
I'd agree with what has been said - that the EA shouldn't give you the prospective purchasers number. But from what you've posted I'd wonder if there was a purchaser at all or was the EA merely telling you there was someone interested to make it appear that they were doing something for you. Especially at the moment I'd say there are a lot of disgruntled sellers and unless EA's are seen to be doing something I'd guess people are changing their EAs after a period of non interest in their property.

Having sold my house a couple of years ago I'd never trust EAs. I'm certain my EA pushed a particular purchaser because he'd been promised the sale of that persons house (which he subsequently got).

BTW I had the reverse situation I asked the EA of the house I was buying for the vendors number (he'd already left the house) as the sale was being delayed by a legal technicality. The EA told me she couldn't give out such personaL information and refused to get the vendor contact me directly - even when I told her the reason. Luckily I found out where the vendor worked, phoned him, we met up and solved a problem the solicitors found insurmountible in a matter of hours.
 
Having sold my house a couple of years ago I'd never trust EAs. I'm certain my EA pushed a particular purchaser because he'd been promised the sale of that persons house (which he subsequently got).
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How does that work? the proof is in the paranoia?
 
MrMan said:
How does that work? the proof is in the paranoia?
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My proof is that shortly before we accepted an offer my EA said to me "I am oblidged to tell you we got a higher offer but my advice is to turn it down as the person who has made the first offer will close quickly." He said that he had done a bit of checking on the second person and found out they still had to sell their own house and we could be messed around for ages. His advice was to take what we had and run with it. He only told us of the second offer at the last moment and inferred he had just received it.

About a year later my wife met a woman through mutual friends. The woman said "we nearly bought your old house!" It transpired that she had made her offer weeks before the EA had told us, that they were in rented accomodation and that the EA had told them that we had already accepted an offer higher than theirs.

In retrospect I can also see that from day one the EA was guiding us to the purchaser. We were happy with the price we got but looking back it is plain to see how we were being used and lied to all along.

And the purchasers house went on sale witht he same auctioneer within days of our sale closing
 
And the purchasers house went on sale witht he same auctioneer within days of our sale closing
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That isn't unusual, because they have already formed a relationship of sorts with the EA so it is natural for them to use that Ea for their own house. If there were underhand dealings originally I would complain, but you would need some form of proof other than a conversation.
 
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