ChrisLDN

Thanks everyone for your advice. Just a quick update. We have finally found another place we liked. Offered 340K (asking price of 360K). Totally different agent this time. Again they asked for all our financial details so that could "qualify" the offer. I told them my wife had all the details and to phone her the following day. The agent said they would put the offer to the vendor immediately because they are required to do this by law, but they said they would not advise the vendor until our offer had been qualified. The next morning my wife rang the agent just as the agent received word from the vendor that our offer had been accepted! At that point the agent gave up trying to find out our finical situation and things have been progress smoothly since. Fingers crossed we be settled in our new place before much longer, although I understand that it can take a while.

Actually it was Felicity J Lord. In the past Foxtons has asked me for similar information but when I said no and they didn't seem to mind or pursue it any further. Felicity J Lord, on the over hand, just wouldn't give up. They said they would advise the vendor not to accept the offer nor take their property off the market unless they were sure of my ability to get a mortgage. I told them I had an agreement in principle for the amount of my offer but they said this was not good enough. In the end I did tell Felicity J Lord everything they wanted to know. They came back to me minutes later to say an offer higher than mine had already been accepted by the vendor. Pretty dodgy hey? Next time I am in this situation I will be sure to follow @Lazybones advice.

Thanks for your excellent advice guys!

Hello, I am a first time buyer in London on a steep learning curve. Last week my wife and I finally made an offer on a house we like. Today I rang the real estate agent to find out how the offer went. I was told they would phone me back. I then received a phone call from a pushy mortgage broker who said he needed to "substantiate" our offer. I did not want to reveal our financial situation and he said the offer could not be put to the vendor unless they knew it was legitimate. What should I do? Chris.