Hi all, I have been at the sharp end of estate agent malpractice. Had my father not personally known the owner of a property (my first home) we were bidding on, we would never have known the estate agent was withholding our offer.
I also have a builder friend who told me it is common practice for estate agents to take ābungsā to lower the price on a property. I will never trust an estate agent again.
I cant just leave it there! Can I do anything to make sure that this agent gets what he deserves?
MOD Edit: Erm, weāre trying to foster helpful community, yadda, yadda, we have some very nice EAs on here, so we donāt welcome blanket statements like that, otherwise, I think youāll need to give some more detail because I canāt figure out if youāve actually bought something or are disappointed because you did buy! Thanks, TUG!
Perhaps the Office of Consumer Affairs or whatever they call it now since they rebranded would be your best bet then, depending on the documentation / records you have to hand and how far youāre prepared to push it.
Iām not sure if there is an EA association either but they might answer a complaint if there was one!
I dont think he really cared whether I bid or not, I hadnāt reached my maximum (which wasnāt very far after!). It was as if he wanted to sell the property to someone else, maybe for a lower priceā¦
No Luck! Apparently there is a National Property Services Regulatory Authority that looks after this area! They are a Government body but are not set-up yet! What now
Seems very open to corruption to me. I mean if I wanted to outdo my competitor as an auctioneer i would give my competitor a bad rating and me a few great ratings. I donāt think that works to be honest.
It was quite hurtful to read this post, for me coming from a family who has been involved in auctioneering for many years.
I do not believe all auctioneers are like this, my father is a very honest man and built a great business on trust and honesty and hard work. People value honesty and trust these days and business is down to trust alone these days I think and auctioneers in general have a bad reputation as we seen at one of the talks in the IAVI conference earlier this year.
Its auctioneers like yours who are giving the rest of us bad names. Im a post graduate studying business but Im hoping to become an auctioneer within 2 years but auctioneers like this is costing us all business. Since that bloody Primetime show on rte last year our business declined quite rapidly as many of our potential customers went for Internet selling privately or decided not to sell at all due to what was going on. I know that there was a slowdown in the market but this made it 4 or 5 times worse Ithink. It shocked a lot of people and people try to avoid auctioneers now as a result which is very sad and indeed worrying.
It was not a fair reflection at all and its the governmentās fault that there is no method of removing bad auctioneers and no way of independently verifying auctioneers. This is costing the auctioneers business millions in my opinion and will get worse. The sooner legislation is brought in the better but from what Ive heard from the NPSRA at the IAVI conference all its going to be is a complaints commission which like the landlord regulatory body will be a farce and will do nothing to protect auctioneers.
I hope you continue to use auctioneers. I know that young people especially are very wary of auctioneers but lets hope some form of protection comes soon for our industry to separate the rotten apples from the good.
There are, as far as I know, two representative bodies for auctioneers, namely the IAVI and the IPAV.
Why is it that they cannot be self regulating? It seems to me that when we try to introduce statutory regulation for any industry there is a scream from that industry that they could be self regulatingā¦so why not get there before the state has to get involved?
In short, I see a lot of blaming the government for stuff when that stuff could be prevented before you have to get statutory instruments involved.
There is a way of doing business in this country which sucks, big time. I have no doubt that there are many essentially honest estate agents. But how are you supposed to know?
Self regulation does noet work and I believe the current situation is somewhat the result of thatā¦Selfregulate a train that has ārunawayā written on the side of it.
and the governmentā¦well, they didnāt interveneā¦after a few Prime Time episodes it was discussedā¦but public outrage faded again and so did the will to regulateā¦
I agree 100% with you. I think both bodies have messed up big time. It could put an end to auctioneers if proper regulation is not brought in. We need regulation that the ordinary punter on the street can see and can have confidence in. Im not sure what the solution is but if the ordinary man in the street cannot have confience in it nobody can.
But yes, everything you have said is 100% correct.
I must find one!
Iām phsically sick at the moment with this whole ordeal. My first experience has been so bad.
with their own code of conduct and no independant observation!
