marcia
13th January 2007, 12:24 PM
Well at last the saga is over (we think!!) - I haven't posted on here all the ups and downs of our house selling 'performance' as it has happened - I've tried to put it our of my mind to be honest - its been my poor parents in the uk who have born the brunt of it!
If some of you can remember as far back as May last year that was when we put our house on the market with the first lot of agents
There are two threads here with the details of the start of the saga.
Sacked our estate agents - http://www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=7264
and
more underhand tactics from the sharks –
http://www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=7297
If you read these threads you will get an idea of the hassle we have had so far. But it didn’t stop there.
At first the new lot of estate agents seemed very good, but we weren’t getting feedback from them etc, we did an open to view and the advert which cost us £100 was a disgrace. We weren’t really happy with them but with only a month to go till our flight date (– we had decided to take the plunge and just go – luckily my parents had offered to sort it out for us if we gave them power of attorney.) So with 4 weeks to go we decided to lower the price again by another 10K, we asked the agents if it would mean it would come into a new price bracket – they said yes it would mean a new mailing list.
A week and a half before we were due to fly we hadn’t had any more viewers. The shippers had been we were living in an empty house, not the best time! The agent was coming out to see us that evening so we could introduce him to my dad and go through everything in the house as he would be showing people around. Kev was in the town centre and decided to pop in and get some figures from the office staff – so he had some data to try and renegotiate the fee with the agent that evening. However he was speechless (not a term generally connected to Kev!!) when the ladies in the office revealed that a mail shot HAD NOT been sent out to anyone – they had forgotten to do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So there we are with just over a week to go with an agent we had totally lost confidence in, we had committed again by lower the price and they had done absolutely nothing to back us up and push a sale!
So Kev walked out of the office and went to a couple of other agents in town to discuss the possibility of changing.
The agent came out that evening, and he and Kev chatted – they sat on garden chairs in the empty front room and I never even offered him a cup of tea – I was so naffed off!! He left it with us to think about over the weekend – we really didn’t know what to do – could a new agent get it sorted before we were due to fly??
On the Monday morning at 9.00am, Kev rang the existing agent to give them another chance, however the man we were dealing with was busy and he said he would ring Kev back – he rang SIX hours later!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At which point we were fuming as you can imagine – would you have left an unhappy customer for six hours before ringing back? – so when he did ring back we sacked them, however we did have a viewing booked for the Tuesday evening which we said we would honour. But we had lined up a new set of agents to take over.
Tuesday evening came and the people who came to view were the very first couple who had viewed the house way back in May – but had said it was too much!!!!!! They loved the house, and it was now in their price bracket. They came back the next morning and offered us the asking price!!!!!!!!! This meant we had to stick with the existing agents. So the rest of the week was spent sorting out papers with the solicitors so as much as possible had been done on our side before we left.
The couple who were buying our house had a buyer for there’s and there were only 3 houses in the chain – they were all aiming for 20th Dec. At last it seemed as if we were on the home stretch!
But once we arrived here we were in contact daily with my dad via email and Skype, and unfortunately one of the buyers pulled out. The people who were buying our house still wanted it and had two people interested in theirs so the chain was back up again. They had a survey done on our house and came back saying it had been devalued by 15K and they wanted to renegotiate – how do you solve that one from the other side of the world? That would have meant we had reduced the price by £70K from the start of the sale and really didn’t want to take another price drop, we knew the things the survey had revealed were not all correct and the valuation was far too low but how can you do anything, Kev got on the phone with the purchaser and agreed to meet in the middle. They still had 20th Dec as a completion date, but that date came and went with no completion. The solicitor had messed up, but we didn’t find this out until after Christmas, dad knew but didn’t want to spoil our Christmas, they had sent him a letter wanting to know about the back lane – who maintained it and what right of way – well we didn’t have a back lane, the solicitor had sent it to the wrong people it should have gone to the people buying our house. Anyway they sorted that out, but the completion date should have been 5th Jan, again that came and went because of the mistake with the back lane.
In amongst all this hassle, our ‘old’ agents, had got wind of the sale, – the buyers were actually introduced by them so they are trying to claim the commission!!!!! Our solicitor received a letter from them, so did our estate agents, who did reply on our behalf. We wait to see if they are going to pursue the claim now!! Unfortunately all the correspondence with them is on the computer in the container which we haven’t got yet (another tale later!!) We had asked them when we terminated the contract, because of their breach of contract, to give us a list of any interested parties, we never go it, but we can’t remember if this was a verbal request or via email!
So the new completion date was 12th Jan, the contracts were signed on the 9th, but we said until dad has the cheque in his hand it’s not a done deal!!! Well he got the cheque yesterday afternoon!!!! Breath a huge sigh of relief…………………….. NOT!!!!!!!!!
The stupid solicitor had made the cheque payable to my parents, and dad was trying to pay it into our account. The manageress at the bank said it would be ok, but rang dad later to say it wasn’t, dad was going to pick the cheque up and pay it into his account, and write one to us to get around it, but when he got down to the bank they had spoken to head office, got confirmation from our solicitor that it was for us, so they said it would be ok!!!
So the money should clear on Thursday – we will wait and see!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Despite all this hassle –we are still together, my parents are still talking to us, and I haven’t gone BALD!!!!!
If some of you can remember as far back as May last year that was when we put our house on the market with the first lot of agents
There are two threads here with the details of the start of the saga.
Sacked our estate agents - http://www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=7264
and
more underhand tactics from the sharks –
http://www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=7297
If you read these threads you will get an idea of the hassle we have had so far. But it didn’t stop there.
At first the new lot of estate agents seemed very good, but we weren’t getting feedback from them etc, we did an open to view and the advert which cost us £100 was a disgrace. We weren’t really happy with them but with only a month to go till our flight date (– we had decided to take the plunge and just go – luckily my parents had offered to sort it out for us if we gave them power of attorney.) So with 4 weeks to go we decided to lower the price again by another 10K, we asked the agents if it would mean it would come into a new price bracket – they said yes it would mean a new mailing list.
A week and a half before we were due to fly we hadn’t had any more viewers. The shippers had been we were living in an empty house, not the best time! The agent was coming out to see us that evening so we could introduce him to my dad and go through everything in the house as he would be showing people around. Kev was in the town centre and decided to pop in and get some figures from the office staff – so he had some data to try and renegotiate the fee with the agent that evening. However he was speechless (not a term generally connected to Kev!!) when the ladies in the office revealed that a mail shot HAD NOT been sent out to anyone – they had forgotten to do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So there we are with just over a week to go with an agent we had totally lost confidence in, we had committed again by lower the price and they had done absolutely nothing to back us up and push a sale!
So Kev walked out of the office and went to a couple of other agents in town to discuss the possibility of changing.
The agent came out that evening, and he and Kev chatted – they sat on garden chairs in the empty front room and I never even offered him a cup of tea – I was so naffed off!! He left it with us to think about over the weekend – we really didn’t know what to do – could a new agent get it sorted before we were due to fly??
On the Monday morning at 9.00am, Kev rang the existing agent to give them another chance, however the man we were dealing with was busy and he said he would ring Kev back – he rang SIX hours later!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At which point we were fuming as you can imagine – would you have left an unhappy customer for six hours before ringing back? – so when he did ring back we sacked them, however we did have a viewing booked for the Tuesday evening which we said we would honour. But we had lined up a new set of agents to take over.
Tuesday evening came and the people who came to view were the very first couple who had viewed the house way back in May – but had said it was too much!!!!!! They loved the house, and it was now in their price bracket. They came back the next morning and offered us the asking price!!!!!!!!! This meant we had to stick with the existing agents. So the rest of the week was spent sorting out papers with the solicitors so as much as possible had been done on our side before we left.
The couple who were buying our house had a buyer for there’s and there were only 3 houses in the chain – they were all aiming for 20th Dec. At last it seemed as if we were on the home stretch!
But once we arrived here we were in contact daily with my dad via email and Skype, and unfortunately one of the buyers pulled out. The people who were buying our house still wanted it and had two people interested in theirs so the chain was back up again. They had a survey done on our house and came back saying it had been devalued by 15K and they wanted to renegotiate – how do you solve that one from the other side of the world? That would have meant we had reduced the price by £70K from the start of the sale and really didn’t want to take another price drop, we knew the things the survey had revealed were not all correct and the valuation was far too low but how can you do anything, Kev got on the phone with the purchaser and agreed to meet in the middle. They still had 20th Dec as a completion date, but that date came and went with no completion. The solicitor had messed up, but we didn’t find this out until after Christmas, dad knew but didn’t want to spoil our Christmas, they had sent him a letter wanting to know about the back lane – who maintained it and what right of way – well we didn’t have a back lane, the solicitor had sent it to the wrong people it should have gone to the people buying our house. Anyway they sorted that out, but the completion date should have been 5th Jan, again that came and went because of the mistake with the back lane.
In amongst all this hassle, our ‘old’ agents, had got wind of the sale, – the buyers were actually introduced by them so they are trying to claim the commission!!!!! Our solicitor received a letter from them, so did our estate agents, who did reply on our behalf. We wait to see if they are going to pursue the claim now!! Unfortunately all the correspondence with them is on the computer in the container which we haven’t got yet (another tale later!!) We had asked them when we terminated the contract, because of their breach of contract, to give us a list of any interested parties, we never go it, but we can’t remember if this was a verbal request or via email!
So the new completion date was 12th Jan, the contracts were signed on the 9th, but we said until dad has the cheque in his hand it’s not a done deal!!! Well he got the cheque yesterday afternoon!!!! Breath a huge sigh of relief…………………….. NOT!!!!!!!!!
The stupid solicitor had made the cheque payable to my parents, and dad was trying to pay it into our account. The manageress at the bank said it would be ok, but rang dad later to say it wasn’t, dad was going to pick the cheque up and pay it into his account, and write one to us to get around it, but when he got down to the bank they had spoken to head office, got confirmation from our solicitor that it was for us, so they said it would be ok!!!
So the money should clear on Thursday – we will wait and see!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Despite all this hassle –we are still together, my parents are still talking to us, and I haven’t gone BALD!!!!!