www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

We are in the process of selling Mum's flat to pay for her care home as she, at 95 with dementia, is no longer able to care for herself. We realise that the market is very slow at the minute and we have applied for the Deferred Payment scheme through Social Services where they pay the fees and charge it on the property, a bit like reverse equity release. The agency my sister instructed naturally wanted a copy of our Power of Attorney document to prove we were legally allowed to market the property which is fair enough. What got my goat is that I got a snooty email asking me (as a seller) to provide my ID. They gave me a link to an App called Credas which checks ID's apparently. I thought this to be entirely unnecessary and wary of putting my details on a third party app, however secure it purports to be, I started an email skirmish saying I did not think they needed my ID as the Power of Attorney document should be sufficient as I had been checked and verified by the Public Guardians Office. They could not answer my question on where is their legal power to demand this I got mealy mouthed b*llocks about money laundering. I said who appointed you as the identity police, this is done by solicitors when a sale is agreed. Anyway, they would not have it and were prepared to drop us.....total w*nkers. However, I am not in control and my sister just wants it on the market, and as they have the best local results I have had to go along with it. I am not using the bloody app though and I will go into their office when I am over in Herts on Saturday.

I am not happy with their overbearing attitude and they even sniffed at this which I sent https://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/indu ... obligation

Has anyone else had this sort of shite

DWD

dewaltdisney, Not had that issue with estate agents, but then I havn't had to deal with them for 13/14 years.

Issue with a bank though trying to prove that I am who I am and that I live at my address. Long story so I won't bore everyone. Basically due to LLoyds /TSB splitting, I was with LLoyds, got moved to TSB and they don't know me...

I had the same issue with Lloyds when my branch went to Santander. I had been with LLoyds since 1968 and I was miffed. I had a lot of trouble switching back to LLoyds in Chelmsford but a helpful lady there helped ease it through. At the time you could not switch before transfer and had to wait until the Santander account was set up.

I hate estate agents even more so now after my brush with these jobsworths. I did a bit of investigation into the company and despite the idiot going on about his big company observing all the rules, it is owned by a company called Sequence which owns and operates a number of estate agent chains and mortgage brokers. So if I am still angry in the morning I may investigate other agencies owned by the group to ensure they are all singing from the same hymnsheet. If I find different chains with differing standards I may take it on with head office if I can be arsed.

Beware if you wake the sleeping dragon

DWD

DWD, when we put our house up for sale in 2015, (joint owners and old style paper Deeds) we initially used an on-line Agent and though not exactly an App, we had to do a video face check; they went out of business before selling, we went local, again a check, but as the Mrs was not on any house service bills the Agent had to call and see her with her passport; despite their assurances they failed to sell and kept changing reps and making unilateral price reductions; finally we went with Purple Bricks and even their local agent called for ID.
Local solicitor who was handling our affairs wanted ID, due their narrow stairway and Mrs with P.D. they agreed for me to drive to the office and sent an assistant to view my wife through the window!
The crooks these rules are made to restrict don't give a dam, only Joe public get to tow the line.

That is strange, as I had never heard of agents doing ID checks for sellers I thought that the lot I am dealing with are being over officious. We had an independent agent first with none of this but decided to move agents as we were getting nowhere. The simple fact is that they can do bugger all anyway, even if my name was Pablo Escobar what could they do? They are just jumped up self-important, useless tw*ts who over time have purported to be something they are not. How did your Purple Bricks go Aero?

DWD

I had an issue with HSBC about 6 years ago. I wanted to pay £10k into my account but they were asking all sorts of questions about where it came from, money laundering etc. etc. I told them it had nothing to do with them and if they bothered to look they'd see I received a regular monthly payment from my employers as I was in full time employment. I could understand if I was on benefits and suddenly wanted to deposit a large sum of cash but this wasn't the case.

The said it was all to do with money laundering.

I told them I'd be closing down my account. An hour later I walked into the Post Office and paid the £10k into my Starling account. The Post Office didn't ask any questions. The next day I transferred the £10k from my Starling account in to the HSBC account. Nothing was said. I received no phone calls. So it ended up where I wanted it just not how I planned.

I closed my account a few weeks later.

DWD, well at the time they were quite active and we had a local rep, they sold the property, we did our own show around they charged about £1200/- as we were classed as London area, bit strange; anyhow they became non active in the South about the time of covid, though I believe they have started up again.
If we had stuck with the local agency they would have charged about £9000, and the cheeky s*ds put our house picture in their window with our bottom price showing which not only p*ssed us off, but caused a ruckus with a buyer we had not accept an offer from at that price, due they had a dubious overseas client/relative interested.
We are told by our old neighbour that the new Family are good neighbours too.