Should Estate Agents be able to sell their

own homes without declaring an interest?

Speak to an Independent Surveyor for friendly advice

We are highly qualified independent surveyors (independent meaning we are not linked to any estate agents) and will offer you advice on your property problems and can carry out a building survey on your prospective purchase; whether it is residential or for business. We can prepare a schedule of condition and property report in relation to your lease. We carry out dilaps reports for landlords or tenants.

Please free phone us on 0800 298 5424 for a friendly chat.

Free phone 0800 298 5424

The things Estate Agents get up to

Recently we were asked to carry out a survey on a property that the purchaser's main reason for asking us to carry out the survey was because the house that was being sold was being sold by an estate agent within a national estate agency practice and this had not been declared to them when they first viewed the property. It was only subsequently, and by accident, that the potential purchaser found out that the property was owned by an estate agent within the estate agency.

Estate Agents and Ethics

This does raise the question of ethics and estate agents. In our experience, having worked with our offices at the rear of estate agents that had nothing to do with us and having also been a partner within a company that had an estate agency, estate agents are about sales and not about ethics; although some may have ethics let us repeat estate agents are about selling properties. Estate agents are in the great position of selling properties without any responsibilities or liabilities.

Large National Estate Agents

Whilst we have not had a direct involvement with any of the large national estate agents recently we have, so to speak, watched on the sidelines for the past ten years or so and prior to that we were actively involved with some of the large estate agents. We would say, from this background, that if anything estate agents have become more about sales in recent years and there seems to be more and more pressures for estate agents to sell, sell and sell. When we say sell, sell and sell we mean that they are not only selling houses they are also selling mortgages, valuations (remember lots of estate agencies own their own Surveyors as well) financial advice (although not directly as estate agents are not legally allowed to) and most of them have also become letting agents. Making no bones about it, estate agents are very skilled at sales after all this is the core of their business.

Estate agents do not recommend surveys

We have literally sat in estate agents waiting for keys to carry out a survey whilst an estate agent has very skilfully talked someone out of having a survey on a property they are looking to buy. Obviously as a Surveyor we are bias towards everyone having a survey and will declare our interest but equally the estate agents should declare their interest with regard to wanting buyers not to have a survey carried out as it may lose them a sale because a problem is found which in turn loses them their commission.

Are estate agents on commission?

The answer is Yes.

Usually estate agents are on a very low basic wage often with a very high incentive/commission to sell properties. From our understanding they are judged purely on the quantity of sales not the quality of their sales.

For example after sales service is much lower down the list of priorities than a new sale where they push a sale through. Generally an estate agent has still got the buyer to jump over a number of hurdles before they have a sale.

You may be interested in our other surveying articles on:-

Estate Agents

Can you trust an Estate Agent?

The Estate Agent says that the building problems are already allowed for in the price

Should I have a Structural Survey?

Hurdles before a sale

The hurdles prior to a property sale are:-

1.  Approval for mortgage

2.  Approval for valuation

To some extent they have control of particularly if the estate agent is owned by a mortgage lender such as a bank, building society or insurance company; you would be surprised just how many do own estate agents and many own Surveyors too which they often refer to as panel surveyors as it sounds much better than their own surveyors.

Therefore it is only when an Independent Surveyor, such as ourselves, is involved in the situation of purchasing property that the potential purchaser gets an independent view.

You may be interested in our other surveying articles on:-

Estate Agent, there is no point in being honest

Do Estate Agents tell the truth or do they just want the house sale?

Why do estate agents own surveyors?

Most estate agents own or are involved with surveyors directly or indirectly, this came out during the 1970's housing boom when the majority of people were allowed a mortgage. This moved many people who were in rented properties into the market for their own housing; an Englishman's castle is his home is a well known phrase (equally applies to Welsh, Scottish and Irish).

What happened was that banks and building societies wanted more than just the mortgage, they wanted better control over the housing market and bought estate agents setting up national chains across the country.

In the Surveying world there are many stories about estate agents becoming rich over night as a bank or building society paid over the odds to buy up the estate agency.

Estate agencies still maintain many of the local trading names for example Countrywide estate agents which are also mortgage lenders (solicitors and Surveyors) trade under:-

Vertical integration

We believe this is known as vertical integration which is when you are not only the supplier but also the retailer and is what the mergers and monopolies commission have looked at with regard to breweries and public houses. We would say that there is a similar situation with mortgage companies and estate agents.

The only problem the banks and building societies then had when selling a mortgage was if the Surveyors did not consider the property suitable equity for whatever reason. This resulted in many banks and building societies not only buying up estate agents but also buying up surveyors.

Although we do not know, we are sure that the same thing happened with regard to solicitors and we now have huge companies that have, in our opinion, massive cartels where they own not only the mortgage lender, estate agent, solicitor and the Surveyors.

We think there is a whole ethical issue here where an estate agent is recommending Surveyors that they own, not to mention them also recommending a solicitor that they own.

Whilst there is said to be Chinese walls with these situations we would question how a company that ultimately owns and pays for wages of the estate agents the solicitors and Surveyors we would suggest that it becomes very hard for them to make unbiased decisions.

Chinese wall defined by Wikipedia the free encyclopaedia

In business, a   Chinese wall   or   firewall   is an information barrier implemented within a firm to separate and isolate persons who make investment decisions from persons who are privy to undisclosed material information which may influence those decisions. This is a way of avoiding conflict of interest problems.

In general, all firms are required to develop, implement, and enforce reasonable policies and procedures to safeguard insider information and to ensure that no improper trading occurs. Although specific procedures are not mandated, adopted practices must be formalized in writing and be appropriate and sufficient. Procedures should address the following areas:   education   of   employees, containment of   inside information, restriction of transactions and trading   surveillance.

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Secret shopper on Estate Agents

Unhealthy alliance between Estate Agents and Surveyors

Independent Surveyors and Valuers

If you are buying a property not only should you have a Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Surveyor carry out the work but also we strongly recommend that they are a member of the Independent Surveyors and Valuers Association.

Here is the website address of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors

www.rics.org

Here is the website address of the Independent Surveyors and Valuers Association

www.surveyorsweb.co.uk

Why we always recommend having an independent building survey?

Always have an independent building survey as this will pin point any property problems. Caveat emptor means buyer beware and is why you need to have a building survey to find out if there are any problems within the property; the estate agent certainly will not advise you of any.

Remember the independent building Surveyor that you employ will be the only person working for you with your interests at heart

Building Surveys versus Structural Surveys

Nearly everyone still calls us to ask for a full structural survey however in recent years the term building survey has been used. It more accurately describes what the client wants as you want a Surveyor to look at the whole of the property, not just the structure so this would then include for such things as woodworm, wet rot and dry rot and other structural issues and some non-structural issues, for example we will often comment on close by trees, drainage problems, old electrics, old gas installations; all things that are not necessarily structural but can cost you money.

Knowledge and Technical knowledge

We are not certain what other Building Surveyors do on their surveys but we always combine the technical knowledge we have with the day to day experiences that we have from looking at properties, to give the best insight to buyers as to possible problems. Often we have said that if we can see a slight problem on the surface it may well be hiding other problems beneath such as poor workmanship and materials; meaning the property suffers from problems.

Clear straight forward and clearly written and illustrated information on your property

As Independent Surveyors we provided detailed structural survey reports where we divide our reports into easy to read sections with detailed information about the property you have asked us to survey.

We divide the Executive Summary into ‘The Good', ‘The Bad' and ‘The Ugly', to help distinguish what in our mind are the main issues of the property in question.

Photographs and sketches

We believe that photographs taken at the time of our survey together with detailed sketches will help the potential buyer of a property fully understand any property problems and issues clearly.

For example

	Examples of our photos and sketches

The circles and ovals on our photos and sketches

We also use circles and ovals on our photographs and sketches to emphasise problem areas so that you are not left wondering what the problem is, like the example to the right.
	An example of our ovals

Action Required

Within our structural building surveys we give advice on an approximate cost in the Executive Summary and the main body of the report which identifies how much a problem will cost to solve. We often give alternative ways to solve a problem so you have a choice of different costs depending upon your financial situation.

For example

Rear right hand side chimneys have deteriorated

We had a limited view of the rear right hand chimneys (all directions given as you face the property); where we could see the chimneys from within the roof we could see they are deteriorating.

ACTION REQUIRED: Re-point within the roof space and also check at high level; this is easier said than done as it will require scaffolding to gain access to this area.

Re-Pointing Defined Re-pointing is carried out where the existing mortar has failed and broken away to stop damp penetration and further deterioration. The mortar should be raked out to approximately 20mm and then replaced with a mortar of a similar type, therefore, stopping damp occurring.
ANTICIPATED COST: In the region of £1,000 to £3,000 dependent upon how access is gained; please obtain quotations.	Chimney in poor condition as viewed from inside the roof space

Examples of our Building Surveys and Structural Surveys

We have put hundreds of different of types of Building Surveys and Structural Surveys on our website because we want you to see how good our surveys are. We have more than likely put a survey of a property that is similar to the one that you are looking to buy. If you free phone us on 0800 298 5424 we would be more than happy to have a chat and discussion about the property you are wishing to buy and it is more than likely we would be able to find an example survey that is similar to your property or at the very least from the same era, as we do feel that over the years we have now surveyed nearly every era and most property types.

Recommended

You will also find lots of testimonials and recommendations on our website from happy customers. We do have customers coming back over the years to use us again and again, as we do have families where every member of the family has used our services over the years. Equally, with commercial properties we have companies that have grown over the years and as they buy new properties we help them with surveys, schedules of condition and property reports.

You may be interested in our other surveying articles on:-

What do Chartered Surveyors do?

Valuation the same, Snap

Independent Surveyors

If you truly do want an independent expert opinion from a Surveyor with regard to building surveys, structural surveys, structural reports, engineers reports, specific defects report, dilapidations or any other property matters please contact 0800 298 5424 for a Surveyor to give you a call back.

Commercial Property Surveyors

If you have a commercial property, be it leasehold or freehold, then you may wish to look at our Dilapidations Website at www.DilapsHelp.com and for Disputes go to our Disputes Help site www.DisputesHelp.com .

Our articles

We hope you found the article of use and if you have any experiences that you feel should be added to this article that would benefit others, or you feel that some of the information that we have put is wrong then please do not hesitate to contact us (we are only human).

The contents of the web site are for general information only and are not intended to be relied upon for specific or general decisions. Appropriate independent professional advice should be paid for before making such a decision.

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