Property TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp has criticised an estate agency in Cornwall for charging a property purchaser for ‘compliance’ in order to increase their chances of securing a property they are desperately trying to buy.
After discovering that Bradleys Estate Agents in Cornwall charge £70 for conveyancing, unless the buyer is using the estate agency’s conveyancing service, Allosp took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to share her thoughts:
“Dear @bradleysgroup
“How can you justify charging a purchaser in this way, is this in the best interests of your client, the vendor? Surely you can read a bank statement and mortgage offer letter?”
Bradleys responded: “This is entirely legal and each company will have different systems/platforms to meet their legal obligations. We won’t comment on others charges, however these checks should be done by every estate agent and reports suggest they aren’t! This protects our clients and ourselves.”
Allosp, unsatisfied with the agency’s response, added: “Why are you charging buyers for these checks? Other agents don’t do this, If you want to charge your client, the seller, to do these checks that is fine, but why is the charge only applied if the buyer isn’t using your solicitor?”
The estate agency concluded: “You’ll find most estate agents are charging due to the increased requirements and obligations not to mention the time it takes. We don’t charge if they use our preferred firm because we have better communication and therefore more control and quicker completion timescales.”
Is Bradleys right? Does your estate agency charge for this service?
EYE has approached Bradleys for comment but received no response.
Well done for calling this out Kirsty! It is purely and simply another way for an Estate Agent to make money. Try selling more houses!
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£70 goes nowhere .
Surprised kirsty is supporting this.
Buyers pulling out of sales with no costs , is simply mad.
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Unethical – do they charge if you don’t use their mortgage broker, removal company or surveyor?
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We expect buyers to pay for their own biometric ID checks too. Not £70, but I get where Bradleys are with this and shows how out of touch many presenters/commentators are with the real world. It is in our cleints best interests that we follow the ‘Propertymark Sales Toolkit’ and do a through and complete check on the buyers situation, AIP, ID, Chain check – we spend the time,then the buyers ‘change their mind’ – sorry Kirstie, about time you woke up and smelled the coffee!
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Will you charge applicants for being on your mailing list too? With a higher tier charge if they don’t book viewings every time? ID checks are a fiver, checking the chain and looking at an AIP is just good practice.
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If an agent chooses to use a third party to carry out their AML checks that is up to them, but the cost to be compliant is the business’s (the agent’s) cost, not the buyers’. In exactly the same way tenants do not pay for their referencing, all costs associated with selling a property should be charged to the homeowner/seller.
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We don’t charge buyers for anything! Its our job to verify the purchasing ability of a buyer.
Getting proof of funds, doing a simple chain check and seeing an AIP is what good agency is all about.
AML checks cost peanuts, Thirdfort who we use, can go the whole way and get it all in one go if necessary.
Companies never charged before, its just another way of squeezing money out of people. Do you job properly, keep the transaction sweet and all parties happy and you have the recipe for a 5 star review and a pleasant transaction.
Agencies have forgotten to make it a pleasant and exciting time for buyers and a stress free time for sellers.
Remember, its a service industry we are in!
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“We don’t charge if they use our preferred firm because we have better communication and therefore more control and quicker completion timescales.“
Use our conveyancing service (for which presumably a referral fee is received) as there’s better communication, more control (of what precisely) and quicker completions. Really? Publish the data. Sounds like a form of conditional buying to me. Use our conveyancers (not necessarily Solicitors, Kirsty) or it will cost you an extra £70.
Maybe these estate agents need reminding: you act for the seller, not the buyer.
You aren’t in control of anything; I doubt the completion times are faster under your method; you’re only doing this to squeeze more money out of the process.
Precisely why estate agents should be regulated and the giving/receiving of referral fees/gifts made a criminal offence punishable by custody.
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No agent is getting rich over £25/70 (inc). Agents do so much before earning a fee, I genuinely don’t see an issue with this but each to their own. As long as the process and reasoning are clear and fair. If a buyer is unwilling to invest less than £100 are they really that serious?
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Of course they can be serious buyers. I wouldn’t pay towards an agent’s optional third-party costs out of principal. The cost should be covered in the fee charged to *their client* the seller, like all the other costs to sell a property are.
And I agree with AMROBINSON that this will undoubtedly result in conditional selling.
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Surely the industry should be looking at other charges such as ‘Modern Auctions’ that are charging buyers fees of thousands rather than £70 here and there? These huge fees are out pricing legitimate buyers and therefore making the sellers wait several months to achieve what could be done much quicker via the traditional sales route. Estate Agents are doing less work and charging more, whilst third party ‘Auction Houses’ are bulking on huge fees.
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Agreed.
The buyer’s fee (+ extra SDLT they have to pay on the fee) is much bigger than the % a seller would pay estate agents who are competing for the instruction (and are offering no sale = no fee). Developers generally do not pay market value, and they are going to reduce their highest offer further to account for the total buying fees.
Sellers are fooled into thinking they are selling for free, but because there are far less people bidding at these ‘Modern Auctions’, and those that do are offering significantly less than what the property is worth to account for the inflated costs, sellers are walking away with far less money.
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My son is in the process of buying a flat, the agent’s broker (I won’t name them yet) has said he must pay “a lifetime membership fee of £699.00”. In fact it was taken from his account without his authority. That cant be fair or correct can it?
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I believe some brokers offer that ‘membership’ as an alternative to paying them an admin fee on every subsequent mortgage application, but would your son want to use the same broker every time he purchases or remortgages? Probably not. They certainly should not be taking payment without his express permission. What did he provide his account details for?
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Our broker doesn’t charge any fees as gets a commission from the lender or insurance company.
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They have already received £392.40 from the lender Shaun.
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He is a FTB and they asked for them, and he assumed they would need them at some stage for the mortgage payments.
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I expect it is part of the Connells group. I have been told that Fox & Sons (Sequence Homes) force buyers to do this in my area. Disgraceful.
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Countrywide do the same or something similar.
All brokers typically get a procuration fee from the lender, but many of them also charge an admin fee.
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