Cockstons Estate Agents
...or something that rhymes with that.

Specifically an apparently pre-pubescent employee of the Woking branch who I had the misfortune to speak to this weekend.

When we told you our very specific budget, we didn't need you to insist that you could easily arrange a much bigger mortgage for us and ignore our budget completely.

When we told you that we were merely investigating to see whether our budget was realistic and whether there was anything on the market for us, we didn't need you to get some shitty IFA to call us "about our finances" a couple of days later - despite us insisting we didn't want them to call.

And there was certainly no need for you to refer to our baby daughter (who was wearing a pink dress - pretty obvious I thought) as "it".
(secretsquirrel, Thu 27 May 2010, 13:17, 4 replies)

On the other hand
I'm currently trying to sell my house and received a piss-take offer, which was refused, then a slightly better offer, which was refused, then an acceptable offer which was accepted. The estate agents then got the prospective purchasers in to arrange a mortgage only to find that they couldn't afford the house anyway. So "investigating to see whether" a "budget was realistic" first sounds good to me.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Thu 27 May 2010, 13:34, closed)

????
The system in the UK must be more fucked-up than I thought. Here in France the estate agents will flat-out refuse to deal with you if you haven't already been to the bank to get a mortgage estimate, thus preventing much wasted time all round.
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Thu 27 May 2010, 13:44, closed)

The problem with UK estate agents is that they're dealing with vast sums of money, lots of red tape, and countless mortgage options. Unfortunately these are usually the thick people that left school but didn't become hair-dressers, air hostesses or join the army.
(tinpixel, Thu 27 May 2010, 18:23, closed)

Agents
I know exactly the one you mean GP's in Woking? I (was forced) to use them as they had the flat I wanted to buy.

I stupidly accepted their offer of talking to the waste of oxygen mortgage advisor and it was the worst mistake of my life! He basically committed fraud repeatedly by applying for motgages in my name that I hadn't asked for (1 had asked for a quote on a certain motgage and they applied for 5 different ones so that I had choice). It damaged my credit rating so much that I had no choice but to use one of them. The guy who did it all got fired (not because of me, but I can only guess he did it to others too), but now that means the company are just blaming it on him and claiming no responsibility.

My colleague went there a month ago and they are still up to the same thing, nothing has changed.

If I default on my mortgage, I'm pretty sure I have a good case of who to sue.
(Panda_z is sweating like a chav in dixons, Tue 1 Jun 2010, 17:31, closed)