We'd like to meet the vendors of the apt we're buying

[Marianne S]

We're in the process of buying an apartment and we were wondering if it would it be a bit cheeky to ask the estate agent if we could meet the vendors at some point. We're definitely going ahead with the purchase, we just want to ask them trivial stuff like getting in contact with the management company, when's bin day, how does the immersion work?

 

[TarfHead]

IMHO it is not cheeky. On both of my property purchases I met the vendors who gave me all such information.

When I was selling my apartment, I left a letter for the buyer outlining all of this and offering to meet with him if he wished. He later phone me to thank me for my consideration.

It is possible that the vendor may be unwilling to engage in case they fear getting calls from the buyer on an ongoing basis.

 

[Marianne S]

That's great, thanks. There's no worry of us hassling them, I just wasn't sure if it was the "done thing"

 

[fobs]

Personally if I was selling i wouldn't want to talk to the vendor personally if i was engaging an estate agent I would consider this to be their job. I would be happy to pass on all info but would not like to be personally contacted as if anything went wrong afterwards would have to wonder if the new buyers would be pestering me! That is just my opinion though!

 

[roxy]

We didn't ever meet our vendor but things were getting quite nasty near the end over closing dates and other things so I'm not sure it would have been a good idea anyway at the time! However when we moved in he left us a card and bottle of wine with a list of stuff like meter readings and alarm code stuff, all the manuals of things left in the house, a bin tag and general information about the house. He also left his number and we have since (both parties) been in contact about of couple of things. So all's good. No harm in asking your EA about it, they are just people at the end of the day and you might get lucky. It's not cheeky, if you don't ask, you won't know!