Conditional selling scandal back under the spotlight
A national newspaper has reignited the debate about the practice and accused some agents of breaking the law.
The practice of conditional selling has been around for years but has received renewed attention following an article published by a national newspaper which is highly critical of estate agencies.
It reveals how weak fines and high rewards for agents mean abuse of the rules is not just confined to the fringes of the estate agency world, with even larger firms such as Connells being accused of the practice, as The Neg has reported in the past.
At the time the industry giant said: “If there is an instance of pressurised selling, Connells will take full and appropriate action. Pressurised selling is neither encouraged nor acceptable.”
But 63% of buyers surveyed by broker Access Financial Services recently had experienced conditional selling, causing them stress and confusion, The Sun reveals.
Breaking the law
Access Financial Services is on record as saying, “By law you cannot make it a condition of passing on offers to the seller that the buyer must use services offered by you or another party.
“You must not discriminate, or threaten to discriminate, against a buyer because that person declines to accept that you will (directly or indirectly) provide related services to them.”
Estate agents who engage in conditional selling are breaking the law via the Estate Agents Act 1979.
Under section 3, the regulations state that every offer made by a buyer must be passed to the seller within two working days of being received. Also, agents must not discriminate against a buyer by misrepresenting their offer to the seller or passing it on less quickly than others.
Of course it goes on particularly with corporate agents. I have posted before that when I was with Sequence, ie Connells, ie Skipton, if we didn’t get enough bums on seats in front of the in-house broker we were disciplined & forced into ‘naughty boy’s’ training courses for improving our persuasive powers to convince buyers that without seeing the aforementioned financial advisor we couldn’t confirm the legitimacy of their offer to the client whose interests we were merely ‘protecting’!
Sequence used to have the FAT club, (first appointment training) , probably doesn’t call it that anymore!