Jackson Noon Estate Agents

deepesh

07 Aug, 2023

Epsom, Surrey

Tired buyer. There is no option for zero stars! If there was, that would be my choice! Have had a very bad experience here. I am writing this review while on my way to view another property on a bus as I have no hope remaining on Jackson Noon will be able to do something else other than try or leave the seller a message and wait for a callback. I wrote a review previously during the week but was asked by the agent to remove it saying they will resolve the situation but all I receive since then is also another set of “I have left a message and expecting a call back” and “seller called, I was out on an appointment”.

Today I even got a different reply from one of the team at Jackson Noon saying they are trying to arrange a meeting with the seller on Monday after work. This is as good a response as not providing one at all! They should have tried to arrange a meeting 2 months ago and by now things would have come to a close. As now I don't have a house to move into, thanks to Jackson Noon, I have a lot of spare time to expand this review too.

I write this review again by adding a few more facts and a nice timeline associated with the facts. Have a read and decide for yourself. I hope this review is able to help someone in future. Viewed a property (thought so) through them in October 2022 and got an offer accepted. Since the offer acceptance to receiving the first copy of contract, it took them about 2.5 months and that was only the start of a slow and agonising wait that I have had to go through. Further to that my mortgage offer has since expired on 14/04/2023 and the sale has not yet been completed.

Agent have not confirmed, not denied… seller has not confirmed, nor denied... for 3 months now if it will go or not. Only heard that the seller is keen to sell but it I will be the buyer is extremely unclear. No urgency is shown by the agent to get the case moving. Apart from the last day of the mortgage offer (14/04/2023), there was a lot of "I have left a message for the seller, expecting a call back" or "they called, I was out on an appointment". You do it once, twice, not for 3 months straight! I mean how difficult is it to arrange a call or a meeting with someone? You call someone, and they don't answer. You leave a message and they get back to you. If you miss then leave a message with some time nominated that OK we shall target this time. If the other party is OK they call at the time, if they are not they call you and leave a message to set another time. It does not take 3 months to organise a call.

In this day and age of mobiles and emails, here I am receiving answers that say "I left a message and expecting a call back". I mean in 3 month time there must have been one time possible to resolve all this, no? But here it seems to be impossible for them to arrange a call between themselves and the seller. On top of that, we repeatedly tried to contact them and requested to arrange a meeting, but they are either on holiday, out on other visits or not available and have completely ignored us buyers to let our mortgage offer run out.

At the time of the offer, the property was offered as "chain free" but we later found out it isn't. Well, thanks very much for that! The fact here is. they are just spoiled by the market. If one buyer goes, another will come in soon as it's london suburbs we are talking about, and they are just enjoying their % off anyone that comes through their door. Along the journey if someone like me is suffering, do they care? Do they out in the extra mile to make it possible? Do they assure me of anything? A big NO. Then they also mention they know the seller very well and will "try" to resolve the issue.

The issue is still there, 6 months on. No to little effort was made from their side. In the beginning, Peter mentioned he has had a bad experience with the solicitor of my choice, what about this then? This is even worst experience for me now and when I wrote a review I was told they will resolve but it still isn't resolved and I suddenly have a lot of time on my hands to not plan a new house move and all. At this time agent is telling me that the seller is keen to sell, but whether am I the buyer still is not clear. Are they honouring the sale is not clear. Why are they not willing to write it down, "ok here is a commitment and get a new mortgage"?

Why are they struggling to talk to each other is not clear. Why are they not picking up the phone either is unclear. Why do I only get "I had called and left a message to seller" as a response again and again and again and for 3 months and again? Why it's me who is losing £900 in this "pretend sale"? Is this a scam? Timeline of events: 03/10/2022 - we viewed the property over the weekend on Saturday 01/10/2022 and made the offer of £545k and asked the question if it is chain-free property or not. Asking price was £550k.

03/10/2022 - immediate response from the agent was "We have had a couple of offers on the property this morning and the owner has asked for all interested applicants to make their best and final offers by 2pm today" to drive the price of property as much up as possible. If the Agent sends me some proof that they did receive any other offer better than what I initially offered, I will remove this part of the review happily. If not, this remains as I was wrongly informed to me that there is a lot of interest in property to drive the price up! Proof needs to be printout of emails from offers of other buyers who were interested at the time.

03/10/2023 - We made a final offer of £555k yet still no answer of if it is chain free or not, this information was not revealed by the agent at all for some time and then we would get a surprise in future around 4 months after this. Then a few months passed, and I got a mortgage offer in the third week of December. Until this time, the agent did not clarify the situation of being in a chain or not and did not either say anything about the seller's side of the paperwork if it was progressing or not. We asked and asked and asked but we're questioned "have I got a mortgage yet" to cover up and push me back from asking too many questions.

Understandably so, if I don't have an upper hand I should not be poking my nose around too much. Then in the same week we also received contract documents from the seller's solicitor. We had a few questions about them and they were asked through our solicitor to the seller and agent but did not receive any response for a few weeks. Complete radio silence. Questions were all simple, they were mostly pulling information together from the past and sent to us for a read, nothing complicated there.

14/01/2023 - We managed to arrange an inspection of the property, found numerous things out of order, and asked for them to be resolved. There was no answer from the seller's solicitor or agent until the next two weeks. This was the second period of complete radio silence.

26/01/2023 - Received an email from the agent asking if all requested issues were resolved, and if I have a moving date in mind. A reply to this from me was we want to move in before mid-March, which would be helpful. This is 6-7 weeks of time really. Then began the waiting game and reply trend of "I have left a message to the seller, waiting to hear back" or "seller called but I was out". This went on for ages now it seems. First Time I heard this was at the end of January and there was time to wait.

Today I write this long and lengthy review as I still have time, an expired mortgage offer and still live in a same rented place I did 6 months ago. Thanks to Jackson Noon I guess. Today is 15/04/2023, two and a half months later and officially one day after my mortgage offer expired. And I still don't have any form of commitment from the seller or agent apart from “I have left a message, waiting for a call back" or "seller called but I was out on an appointment". I will have no option but to go through another 4 weeks of bank paperwork to organise another mortgage. I do not understand as a willing buyer, ready to pay money, have done my side of things, in time! and have pushed where required.... why I still end up on the losing side of it.

It is understood that as soon as my mortgage expires everyone else gets to move on from this. The seller can just go and relist the property for sale again and seek another buyer. Agents will move on to selling other properties including this one and get their %. But all my hard work, all my hopes, all my dreams, I watched them slip through my fingers yesterday (14/04/2023) because all Jackson Noon did was "I have left a message, waiting to hear back" for 2.5 continuous months... And this is the main reason for me to write this review because everyone else gets to move on, not the buyer.

What do I do? I have invested 6 months of my life in it, £900 (for area searches and building survey) in the hope of a home, all I got back is "I have left a message, waiting to hear back". In the end, I also got to know that there is no power to the buyer in this process. The buyer bends over to get a mortgage, the buyer further bends over to request the agent to get the case moving, and the buyer keeps bending over to let the mortgage offer expire without having a say or choice. And the worst of all false hope is "they are doing something about it"... and then I got another "I've left a message and waiting for a call back". Honestly, there are some bad estate agents... and then there is Jackson Noon! Maybe I am not getting it, this could be a trick by Estate agents to drive the prices further up. Now I am desperate to buy so I may end up buying by overpaying for a property. Well played!!