A year ago I decided to finally put my savings to some use and stop paying other cunts’ mortgages. Especially the cunts who own the house I’d been living in for the last five years, the kind of cunts who got mummy and daddy to help finance the majority of it, stuffed the attic with their own belongings, and fucked off to Dubai to evade paying UK tax for next 15 years. Total fucking cunts in other words.

After 9 months I’ve finally completed and am cracking on with decorating. But let’s tell a story about one of the many, many cunts I met along the way. No, not my utterly fucking useless conveyancing solicitors (“Bill, Bunsen, and Theo”) one of whose Senior Partners at one point interpreted a critical phrase in the legal paperwork so badly as to insist in writing to me that it meant the opposite of what it actually said, which caused me to have to go look it up, and absolutely destroy her by reply, which she of course completely ignored – they’ll be getting their turn on this blog soon enough.

No, this is the story of a prominent London agency we’re going to call Fexters, and one of their agents we’re going to call Bosh. Completely made up names, could have called them Wexters and Mosh, or Jexters and Dosh, just placeholders. Doesn’t mean anything.

Cosh was the branch manager of this particular Pexters, and while the naive might hope this would mean he’s more responsible and less of a lying cunt than the average estate agent, I’m pretty sure that nobody is ever made the branch manager of an estate agents without being the absolute pinnacle of Irresponsible Lying Cunts.

I saw a place I wanted to check out, on Rightmove. I requested to view the property. I got an email from Tosh at Kexters asking about availability etc, and I let him know I could do around midday that coming Saturday.

Shortly after this, I received four appointments from Nosh to view four properties with Bexters that Saturday, starting just after 9am.

Hmm, crossed wires maybe? I know, I was still a little naive at this stage.

So I emailed Mosh and let him know I’d mistakenly received three appointments for properties I didn’t want to see. Dosh let me know he’d done that deliberately actually, to help me out, because he wanted me to see plenty of options. I let Bosh know I wasn’t interested in any of these options and would only be seeing the one I’d requested to see. All done. No reply from Tosh so I foolishly assumed he’d understood and respected my wishes.

Of course he fucking hadn’t.

Saturday comes. I’ve had a busy week and enjoy a lie in. Just after 9am my phone rings and seeing as I have a lot of estate agents getting in touch right now, I answer it. It’s someone from Wexters who wants to know if I’m coming to this appointment, they’re waiting for me.

I only have one appointment with Fexters today, it’s around midday. It’s immediately obvious that Bosh has ignored my request and kept all those appointments he made for me, at times that I wasn’t available, presuming or hoping I’d just turn up. Bosh is either incompetent or just a fucking twat. I charitably assume the former. Later I will find out that he’s also a fucking twat.

But for now I tell them that I only asked to see that third one, none of the rest, and that I’ll see them there around midday.

Then I email Bosh and ask what’s going on. He breezily brushes it aside, oh no, whoops, never mind. What a prick.

I turn up for the appointment. I wait at the door. An obvious estate agent type pulls up in the car park. She walks towards the door. I step towards her to say hello. She doesn’t even register me, breezes right by me, and warmly greets an older woman and 19/20-something girl she’s with.

Err.. hello? I’m here for this viewing? At this time? Am I early, or late?

“Oh right yes let’s see… yes I have you here. Right on time. Oh, we’re doing a joint viewing, is that okay?”

“Fine by me” says the older woman. Well it would be, seeing as (as I’ve since all but confirmed) she almost certainly works closely with Fexters in some role or other, and almost certainly knew full well she was piggy-backing on my appointment when she got her mates to book it in for her.

It’s not fine by me, as nobody asked or told me and if they had I’d have asked to see it alone, so I quietly open my mail app and send off another ‘wtf’ email to Bosh.

Estate agent then spends 30 seconds trying every key on her keyring to open the outside door. In case that doesn’t sound too embarrassing, count it. It’s quite a long time to act like such a bumbling clown in front of potential clients considering spending an eye-watering amount of money with them.

Eventually the older woman steps in and says “This door has a security code to access it, here, let’s see your clipboard… (takes it off the young viewing agents, flips a page…) yep, here, use this code. I work with Fexters so I know the property.”

Ah ha. Perhaps Tosh knows this property has been on for a while, and knows he’s the second agent to rep it for the sellers, and doesn’t want a dead dog on his hands, so he’s treating it like a numbers game and cramming as many potential buyers into each viewing as possible. And he’s favouring his colleagues, at my viewing expense. Nice.

Estate agent is clearly inexperienced and struggles again with the next door, the one into the actual flat. Finally she gets it open, steps in, we all follow closely behind. But she’s forgotten she has to deliver her spiel, so she stops, turns around, makes us step back outside, and starts the unrehearsed bumbling speech.

Reading off her clipboard she still manages to get a couple of things wrong about the property, and she does the classic estate agent thing of misdirecting from the facts in a way that benefits the sellers if you don’t think too hard about it, such as staying that it has a very nice long lease period… before mumbling that’s only if you count it from like 20 years ago. So it’s actually 20 years shorter than she just stated. Estate agents, man, fucking pricks.

As I wander around trying to give it a serious look, it becomes obvious that this older lady already knows the property and wanted her daughter to see it. I have never seen it so I have to go round with a competing buyer swanning round like it’s her appointment and I’m tagging along, and it’s not a pleasant experience.

So I basically wait for the older lady and her daughter to fuck off. When they do, I take my time and try to have my own viewing but the estate agent is itching to get away.

The place is nice enough but I have misgivings.

Patio is directly next to the front entrance and car park so every single person coming and going will stroll past me half a foot away while I’m trying to enjoy my patio in privacy, plus there’s another car park next to it for the block over, then there’s the railway station car park, and the railway line and the very busy station itself. Lots of cars, lots of exhaust fumes, lots of people, lots of noise. No peace and quiet.

The route to the bins is also past the patio so I’ll get to enjoy everyone taking their bins out, all the time. And the bins are directly outside the ensuite bathroom window, along with the side entrance to the property which everyone will use as it’s closest to the station. So I can’t really leave that window open as much as I’d like. Which is probably why this bathroom absolutely stinks of musty damp towels. On a viewing day. Nice.

Also, the open plan lounge kitchen is just the most infuriating shape, with half the space annoyingly closed off by diagonal walls leaving a floorplan that’s almost completely inflexible – there is really only one way to arrange a sofa, table, and TV, and it’s a stupid and annoying arrangement.

Plus it has a second bathroom which is useless to me. I live very happily alone and will never ever use it, but there it is, taking up yet more awkwardly shaped floorspace I’m paying for, full of plumbing that will need to be maintained.

My gut feeling is no, but I’m also quite angry about what a bunch of cunts all the Fexters people seem to be: Mosh, this idiot viewing agent, and their colleague who pushed her way onto my viewing. So my judgement is clouded.

I tell Mosh I don’t understand why he tried to book my whole morning with viewings I didn’t want, and then made it a joint viewing without telling me, and that his viewing agent was poor, and that the property had a strong damp smell because of the bathroom. For all these reasons I can’t tell how I really feel so I’d like to see it again, properly, on my own, with someone who knows what they’re talking about, and hopefully the seller can sort out the damp musty stink.

Tosh assures me he has no idea how the double booking happened, leaving me to reasonably presume that even though he’s the branch manager that doesn’t mean he’s responsible for his staff being as twatty as him. But I get another viewing.

The next viewing agent is someone much older, much more experienced, and who knows how to sell a place. She says “second viewing eh? You must like it!”

I tell her that no, it’s my first viewing. She checks her notes. I point out that Bosh fucked up the last viewing so really this is the first time I’m seeing it properly.

I think she can tell I’m not convinced about the kitchen/lounge layout the second I walk in, because the moment we walk in she says “you know, if it was me I’d get that counter island out and really open up the space in here…” which is exactly what I was thinking.

Well, sort of. I was thinking “this floor plan fucking sucks, how could I make this work?” and her suggestion at least gives me some food for thought.

(Spoiler: the floorplan is fucking unworkable, it’s a horrible shape, and eventually I noped out of this property mainly for the reasons already given, but also because of what a Grade A, Tier 1, card-carrying omni-cunt Bosh proves himself to be shortly…)

I get a good look around, trying to answer my existing concerns about the space, and I’m struggling. But at least the damp towels are gone. It’s also in pretty good condition so no decorating urgently needed, and I start to rationalise away the car parks and bins and second bathroom and entrance-next-to-patio issues.

Next issue. The sellers have had it on the market for many months now, it’s dropped price at least once (was at least 25K overvalued imho having checked what price they originally wanted) and changed agent too.

I also learn from Dosh that the sellers have not found their onward purchase yet. But… it’s been on the market for ages! They’ve not even offered on anywhere yet?

I’m tired of the games Bosh plays so I tell him, “I’ll be honest with you, I rent so I have no chain. And I have a huge deposit. I want an easy purchase. I do not want to get all the way to exchange and then have to wait months while they take their sweet time finding a place to even offer on that might well have a horrible chain attached, who knows? At some point I’ll be required to sign a new rental contract so I do not want to get caught in their chain, that kills it for me.”

Dosh says he understands and will relay my concerns.

I go look at some other places, with agents who only book me in for the properties I asked about, not everything they want to get rid of without even asking me, and who don’t squeeze their colleagues into my viewings. I see a place where the sellers also won’t be ready to move for a while but they’re committed to moving into rental as soon as they get a buyer who can exchange, to keep it moving.

I decide to ask Bosh if the sellers here would consider moving out into rental. But literally just before I send the email, Bosh gets in touch to literally propose the same thing.

He claims he just got off a call with them, they’d seen a place they like, and if there’s interest in their place they’re looking at moving into her parents place in the meantime. I tell Bosh that’s great, it would solve my timing problem, and actually I’ve just seen another place I like where they’ve already openly committed to that plan once they have a serious accepted offer. So I was about to ask the same of these guys and it’s great they’ve proposed that first. I tell him I’m still interested, but I would need commitment to the plan from them.

This is where it starts to go horribly wrong. And looking back on it, I have to wonder if Bosh was lying about it being their idea, or that he’d even discussed it with them at all.

Anyway, a day or so later Nosh replies to tell me he’s not sure what their plan is, but that he’s sure whatever happens – they move into parents, they don’t move into parents – it would all work out. That’s because it takes a couple of months to sort a sale and so he’s sure there’d be plenty of time for them to find somewhere and move on, and chains are normal and blah blah blah.

Bosh, no. I’m very firm on this. I hold the cards here. I have no chain. I have a huge deposit and an agreed mortgage. I’ll sail through all the legal checks and whatnot. I am ready to go. What I want is to buy a place with equally hassle-free circumstances. So I want to speak to him face to face to explain the situation and get honest answers.

Dosh agrees to meet me that evening at the Fexters office. I foolishly assume Dosh has his own private office on the premises, being the branch manager and everything. Dosh does not have an office. Dosh sits me down three feet away from all his minions, perhaps hoping that’ll curtail my directness, but he is wrong.

I start a voice recording on my phone before I go in, because if he’s going to be a cunt I want a recording of it. That’s also why I tend to not take calls from estate agents and direct them to email me instead. I’ve noticed estate agents really don’t like putting much in writing. Funny that.

I tell him I’ll put aside the four appointments and the double-booked viewing, and that all I want now is an assurance that this couple – who have been trying to sell their flat for months now, and have already moved agent once, and dropped the price once – are going to do the right thing to ensure a sale and commit in writing to moving out once we approach exchange, whether they’ve found a place or not. Like other sellers have already committed to doing.

Nosh won’t give me that assurance. He isn’t that direct of course, he spins it out across an awful lot of fake-chummy banter about the industry and new buyers not understanding the process and reassurances that only a single-figure percentage of sales fail for whatever reason blah blah blah.

I let him talk, and re-iterate what I would need them to commit to, the reasons why I want that, and that it doesn’t feel at all burdensome to have these sellers agree to that if they’re motivated to sell.

Are they motivated to sell, Bosh? Because if they’ve not even found a place yet, they don’t sound that motivated. Oh yes they’re motivated and they’re very keen on a place actually. Whatever.

Let’s stop a moment to take stock of what’s really happening here: I don’t know it yet but right about now I’m being driven by all the wrong motivations. I now realise that I was motivated by beating Bosh at his own game, by getting him to agree on his sellers behalf to my reasonable requests that they get the fuck out by exchange no matter where they are in their own ‘onward purchase journey’.

And it’s possible that Bosh is astute enough to realise that, and play into it.

Also I seem to have suppressed the fact that I actually don’t really like this place. I have serious concerns about my comfort with the front door literally an inch from my patio, with the bins outside my bathroom, with the multiple car parks and extremely busy railway station in spitting distance, and the second bathroom that I’ll never use taking up valuable unusable expensive floorspace. And it really is EXPENSIVE for what little refurb opportunities it has.

(SPOILERS: I finally realise all of this less than 24 hours later, and get the fuck out of it damage-free.)

But for now, I’m determined to beat this smug, smirking, cunty estate agent branch manager into submission. Rhetorically speaking, of course. And here’s where Dosh truly fucks his payday into the ground, not that he’ll ever realise that.

(SPOILERS: he will in fact find out exactly what I think of him. Or, at least, his boss will, about six months later. We’ll get there…)

I say something like “Bosh, if we get to exchange or close to it and they suddenly decide they aren’t going to move out for me and they just need me to wait a bit longer and they’ll definitely complete their own chain – if that happens I will quit the process and go find somewhere else that’s an easier buy.”

And, for reasons I will never understand but am eternally grateful for, Bosh gives a reply that effectively shoots the deal dead at point blank range with a sawn off shotgun, bless his heart:

“Yeah but will you really pull out if they do that? Why would you walk away after you’ve spent so much time and money on it?”

It takes me until next morning to realise that he’s really saying “We’ll fuck you over and you’ll take it, you gullible cunt.”

But wait, there’s more! I start to end the meeting and make noises about when he would like my offer by, if I make one. Not recognising the damage he’s already done, and spying an opportunity to let his power trip fuck it up even more, Bosh seals the fate of this sale with an ultimatum.

I’ve barely finished asking when he’d want to receive an offer by when he snaps “Tonight.”

Bosh sounds a bit desperate for a sale, huh? The way he leaps on that deadline triggers a vague, distant recognition in me… what is it they say about salesmen? Something about when they use an immediate time deadline to force a quick decision out of their mark, you say no and you walk away. It escapes me in the moment, but it comes back to me overnight.

So I go home, not sure he’s actually agreed to anything I want, but I have it in my head that to win this I need to make an offer and get it done. So I submit my offer by email an hour later. Then I sleep on it.

And when I wake up it hits me just how much I do not want this property. I hate the floorplan. I will never ever be able to arrange all my furniture how I want it in that lounge kitchen. I do not want a lounge kitchen anyway. I don’t want a second bathroom I’ll never use and can’t repurpose. I don’t want my patio a foot from the front entrance to the whole block. I don’t want three carparks outside my windows. I don’t like being pressured when I’m unsure. I don’t trust the estate agent anyway, but thanks directly to him I definitely don’t trust the sellers either.

I don’t want this place at all. And I definitely don’t want to get down to the line and get screwed by the sellers deciding they’re going to stay right there until they complete on their own onward purchase that they haven’t even initiated yet.

I email Gosh and keep it very simple. Having slept on it, and considered my experiences and what I actually want, I recognise that I’ve acted hastily and should not have made an offer. I regret it and sincerely apologise but I am withdrawing my offer effective immediately. Done.

Bosh emails back later. Am I sure? Why? I tell Bosh I would be making a number of compromises I’m not happy with, and that’s my final decision. I don’t go into it, he doesn’t need to know.

Bosh emails back again a little later. He asks what my concerns actually are, and helpfully lets me know he’s not told the sellers that I’ve withdrawn my offer so it’s okay to change my mind back again. I tell him they aren’t compromises that can be addressed and my decision is final.

I spend the weekend feeling immensely relieved, which tells me I made the right decision.

On Monday Nosh emails to let me know he’s pleased to say the sellers have accepted my offer! How would I like to proceed? I’m pretty sure I just ignored him but what a fucking horrible thing he did to those sellers, letting them spend the weekend excited they finally sold their flat.

Later that week I was shown a place by someone else, that wasn’t even on the market yet. It ticked almost all my boxes and six months later I owned it. Sitting in it now typing this. Love it.

But Bosh from Fexters is a fucking cunt. What was even more astonishing is that a week later he sent me an email requesting a review?! He’s very lucky that I didn’t type one up, on every review portal available, because I would have fucking destroyed him and Fexters. And I would have had all the emails and the recording to prove it.

In the end I decided to move on quietly. I felt bad that Tosh will continue to be a total arsehole with other buyers, but frankly all estate agents are cunts. Buyer beware.

And that was the end of that.

Except eight months later, in my new home, bought through a different estate agent, Marnard Barcus (which to be honest did its own fair share of lying, erm, I mean becoming briefly confused about the facts of this property, crossed wires you see, totally innocent, most inadvertent) I received junk mail from Fexters, addressed to ‘The Legal Owner’, suggesting that I should get Fexters round to value my property so that I can get it on the market with them.

This letter included the name, phone number, and email address of the ‘Director’ of the very same branch of Fexters that Bosh was branch manager of. I’d forgotten all about Bosh. Until that letter landed.

So I emailed that Director, and told her in no uncertain terms that I was not only the new owner of this property and had no interest in selling it, if I did I wouldn’t touch Fexters with a bargepole based on my past experiences with them. Kindly remove me from your mailing list, please and thank you.

The Director replied, to her credit. She trotted out some line about how it’s just automated mailing list stuff and oh no sorry about that and we’ll get that removed… but also what was the experience with Fexters that went so wrong?

And so I told her everything. She asked, after all. I never once named Bosh. But I told her I hoped she’d forgive me if I didn’t have a very high view of estate agents at all and that his methods were exactly as manipulative and unprofessional as I’d come to expect them to be. I added that after all this I’d looked up the online reputation Fexters enjoyed and found a ton of very similar stories of manipulation and bullshit.

I have a mixed view of her replies. Firstly she excused the multiple appointments, they just like to give their buyers options.

LADY, I WAS NOT ASKED AND DID NOT WANT THEM. I asked to cancel and Bosh just… didn’t bother.

Then an assurance that her staff should never be manipulative and should be much more professional.

YEAH BUT THEY AREN’T. And who are you kidding, you’re estate agents, you’re well known to be manipulative and unprofessional.

And that she knew exactly who I meant and that she’d be having words.

YOU GONNA APOLOGISE TO THOSE SELLERS TOO? That arsehole ignored not one, not two, but three emails withdrawing my offer and he didn’t lift a finger to tell the sellers, letting them waste their weekend deciding whether to accept. That poor couple. YOUR GUY DID THAT.

And that’s where I left it. As much as I relish the thought of Bosh getting a bollocking, I expect it’s far more likely that he got a slapped wrist and a pay rise for his efforts, because estate agents are cunts.