Renata1079
I'm near the south coast. Our local estate agents insist we get a buyer before even being allowed to go and view anything else (apart from on-line) or make an offer on the next place. That means if people buying my place get impatient waiting for me to find my next place, they and the estate agents will bully me to move into rented accommodation and put my belongings in storage, so my buyers can proceed and move in. (It's happened to other people I know.) I would become a cash buyer for the next place, and could make an instant offer on something I want. But as an elderly widow I can't afford to rent and pay storage fees. There is a minimum of 6 months rental contract to sign. Then rent is payable monthly after that, with a months notice. I feel trapped by this system.
That is horrifying. I am very wary of estate agents. I am an elderly widow too. I have a detached house with a disabled living extension. In 2018 I did much the same as you are being asked to do. I listed the house for sale at a price recommended by the estate agent. I didn't even get a copy of a brochure. Viewers were turning up with builders, and no wonder. I discovered they were selling the house as in need of complete remodelling. It is not. They even took it off the market over a bank holiday. I didn't even find that out until after the contract had ended.
Then the manager left and a new one came. He had never seen me or the house, nor did he want to see the house. He sat on the sofa and me in a chair and began to speak in a very rude way. I had received one offer of £100,000 less than the asking price, which the previous manager had suggested. I refused. I moved into this house in 1986. I first bought a house on this estate in 1968.
That man started shouting at me, telling me I was 'deluded if I thought the house was worth more than the offer'. He started toward me, red in face, and I asked him to leave or I would call the police. He did. I wondered why he was so angry. I googled his name and came up with it in Companies House. I found he had started a company the year before and had taken out charges, on a house is another county, the month before my house was listed,
A week later he said someone offered the ASKINGPRICE, but wouldn't tell me their name. Eventually they gave it to me, That offer was made by another property management company. He said he sold his house in ,,,,,, When I accepted that offer, because it was the exact list price, I discovered that he was living on this same estate in a house he - supposedly bought. I had a feeling that the offer wasn't genuine. When the contract ended, they withdrew that offer.
During covid, in 2020 a number of elderly on this estate died. Their homes were sold, but not listed for sale. I am disabled and housebound so I don't get out much, but I could see that the detached houses were being bought up. My carer told me that some had a small extension and were turned into two homes - a and b - and rented out. The were all given the same cladding, as on the TV programmes, and the same front doors. It is possible that the property managers and letting agents in this town want the estate gated. It has the most detached houses on it anywhere, and the small new builds surrounding it are for shared ownership.
My plot is 58ft wide and almost as long, the largest, at the end of a cul-de-sac, no traffic noise or pollution, view from the front bedrooms, nothing in front so gets the sun all day, set right back from the other houses in the row. 5mins level walk to primary school, 10 to secondary, 15 to shops and services. Parking for 6 visitor cars. No noise, not overlooked. 1900sqft. Nothing structurally wrong. Old fashioned bathrooms. What's not to like?
I have made two attempts for equity release, which will enable me to live comfortably with more care, because I was diagnosed with macular degeneration last year, and had GBS in 1987 and CIDP now. I was turned down. The surveyor each equity release company sent valued it as £NIL! There was nothing on the report about any structural defect!
I am pretty sure now, that the houses are being bought up, divided and rented out. They have to buy them cheap to be able to completely update them. I think I am being forced to stay here, die here, without being able to make the house comfortable by releasing equity. If I redecorated etc. it would raise the value and those property managers (and the partnership includes local tradespeople so I cannot get quotes on work).
My daughter will not be able to sell it when I am gone. They will not let outsiders buy these houses, and anyway there are still new builds to sell. They will sit on her until she cannot pay utilities, and buy it undervalue, at the IHT cut off. It is how landlords make their money.
