Home sellers resort to dirty tricks to hook buyers

Almost a quarter of sellers admit to having lied about, or hidden problems with their property in an attempt to make it more appealing to prospective buyers according to new research from Homeserve, the UK’s national home emergency service.

With the average time taken to sell a property reported to have doubled from 5.5 to 13.5 weeks and the number of deals falling through between offer and completion soaring from eight to 13 per cent over the same period, the research suggests that a significant proportion of sellers are resorting to dirty tricks to hook buyers.

Over the last year alone eight per cent of sellers admit to either failing to tell buyers about boiler or heating problems or lying about the age of their boiler. The same proportion admits to having lied about problems with parking in their area or kept quiet about nightmare neighbours.

According to the research a worrying proportion of people have covered up cracks in their walls (6%), temporarily patched up leaking roofs (5%) or hidden evidence that they share their home with pests such as mice (3%).

Commenting on the findings, Jon Florshiem CEO of Homeserve Membership said, "Buyers should take note of this worrying research. In the current housing market it has become increasingly difficult to sell property and unfortunately a worrying number of desperate sellers are resorting to hiding problems rather than paying money to have these problems rectified.

“Buyers should thoroughly inspect the property before making an offer – ask sellers to move furniture, lift floor coverings and check that heating, water and electricity is in working order.”

Earlier Homeserve research found that the average homebuyer is forced to fork out £1,961 to rectify problems with their new home that they weren’t aware of. The same research found that buyers feel let down by homebuyer surveys with 60 per cent of recent buyers claiming to have uncovered a problem with their home that they expected to be uncovered in the survey undertaken when they bought their property.

Jon Florshiem concluded, “In readiness for their completion date all buyers should ensure they have the right level of home insurance, including cover for emergencies as this can save them a small fortune in the event they should unearth a problem they had not anticipated."

Sellers in the North of England were most likely to cover up problems with their new property (42%). Sellers in this region were most likely to admit to covering up cracks in the walls (14%) and leaking roofs (12%).

Those in the South East trying to sell their property were most likely to keep quiet about their problem neighbours (13%).