Professor Property Advice

I will try and keep this short but it is a bit of a saga. Any help that you can give would be gratefully received. My wife and I are selling our leasehold flat which is one of eight in an old Victorian conversion. We were selling the property through an Estate Agents at there recommended value of £159,950.00 and found a buyer pretty quickly when we accepted an offer of £155,000.00. When the survey was carried out it was bought to our attention that the fire escape needed repair. We said that this was fine and we would take £2,000.00 off which would cover 1/8th of a future repair up to the cost of £16,000.00. This seemed to be OK and nothing else was raised but a couple of days prior to exchange they pulled out for reasons they would not give apart from she could not afford any future maintenance bills. They did say though that they had a family friend who was a general builder look at the fire escape. After this disappointment we found another buyer who again offered £155,000.00 which we accepted. When this valuation on behalf of Halifax and survey on behalf of the client took place I received a phone call from the estate agents mortgage advisor who is arranging the mortgage on behalf of our buyer to say that the property had been devalued by £10,000.00 (from the offer price, not the estate agents valuation) due the fire escape being condemned. When I said to the estate agent this did not seem fair as it should be 1/8th of the £10,000.00 and we were happy to offer £2,000.00 off he said that this is the way that the lender works, they do not care that it is 1/8th. This was a different surveyor but same company from the previous survey 3 months apart. The buyers lender would not apparently lend above £145,000.00 but we have eventually come to an agreement for a price of £150,000 with the buyer finding the extra difference and the lender issuing a mortgage to the level that they would for £145,000 to res

I feel extremely uncomfortable that the buyers mortgage advisor (who appears to be working for the buyer) is working for your estate agent and calling you to save a deal for the buyer and the agents (and the seller) This seems to be a conflict of interests and it seems you have been put into a position where the agent you are paying doesn’t appear to be fighting for your interests. Obviously difficult to see from this how your interests are being served.

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