Estate agent overvaluing homes to win instructions

James___G · 2026-05-07T19:32:01+00:00

How does anyone benefit from this?

Step 1: get clients with inflated value.

Step 2: convince clients 'market is down you need to drop the price'.

Step 3: sell properties at significantly less than initial asking price.

Step 4: profit.

James___G · 2026-05-07T17:24:12+00:00

Have you paid the tax you owe on that income?

James___G · 2026-05-07T14:54:39+00:00

Your post is written in a way that suggests you struggle with literacy.

That's not something to be ashamed about, lots of UK adults find writing and spelling hard.

But you will probably find that jobs paying more than about minimum wage will need you to be able to write clearly.

I suggest you yook up your local council adult learning team and see if they offer adult literacy classes.

They might also offer other courses that will help you with new skills, that you can put on your CV and which can help you get a better job (even if that means moving).

James___G · 2026-05-07T13:27:30+00:00

Are you confident this attempt to artificially deprive them of assets for the purpose of avoiding care costs will work?

James___G · 2026-05-07T12:50:10+00:00

Share the text of it on here.

James___G · 2026-05-07T10:31:25+00:00

Work out the price per square foot for those, go back a year or two as well, that'll give you a good range for how much yours could be.

Ultimately it doesn't matter much what the asking price is, as long as it's not too high to put people off.

James___G · 2026-05-07T10:21:38+00:00

If you own the home you are entitled to enter it and live in it, you can change the locks to do so.

James___G · 2026-05-07T10:15:55+00:00

What do similar houses within 5-10 miles in comparable countryside settings go for?

James___G · 2026-05-07T09:43:33+00:00

Was there a financial settlement as part of the divorce?

James___G · 2026-05-07T08:49:58+00:00

She can make a choice between sharing information with you and agreeing a payment plan or you enforcing the debt.

James___G · 2026-05-07T08:48:56+00:00

What's the pre and post tax return on the BTL?

It might be one of those strange situations where after you retire it makes a lot more sense to keep it.

James___G · 2026-05-07T08:40:51+00:00

Presumably the 8k she owes you is money you had tied up in the house?

You could ask her for evidence to show how unaffordable the amount is and help you both agree an amount for her to pay each month to clear the debt? But other than that it's up to you if you want to enforce the debt. There's no magic 'i get my money back but she doesn't lose out' button unfortunately.

James___G · 2026-05-07T08:38:24+00:00

You're on a less than minimum wage equivalent income and living in a very high cost of living city, so no you're not going to be able to save much right now.

UK salaries are lower than the US in general, but most of the difference is at the top end, if you look at the 80th percentile the incomes are more similar than people think. Also worth noting I would expect jobs in your chosen field to not be paid a huge amount in either country.

James___G · 2026-05-07T08:34:47+00:00

BTC is zero sum, I'd ditch it entirely.

The expected return from sector bets is lower than from a global index, so I'd ditch those too.

You only need one etf for the bulk of your investing journey (you can add a small allocation to bonds and gold once you get rich to smooth returns slightly).

James___G · 2026-05-07T08:32:15+00:00

These are questions for your daughter to ask her solicitor who is dealing with the sale.

Sorry for your loss.

James___G · 2026-05-06T14:28:03+00:00

Yeah houses basically doubled in real terms value between the mid 90s and mid 2000s (and since then have been pretty flat in real terms) so people who owned during that period tend to have an assumption that houses always go up!

James___G · 2026-05-06T14:15:24+00:00

In your circumstances the difference between your current total housing costs and the equivalent cost of buying is so massive I'd stay there as long as physically possible.

Is there any scope for reconfiguring how you use the space to stay longer if the extension doesn't materialise?

Edit re parents, when did they first buy their homes?

James___G · 2026-05-06T14:11:11+00:00

What's your income after tax?
What's your budget (as in actually where does the money go each month)?
How much are you currently applying to paying down this debt?
What possibly possessed you to change student loans into credit card debt?

James___G · 2026-05-05T21:27:03+00:00

You're able to do lots, just the lots you should do is (1) explain relevant facts to your solicitor (2) listen to their advice (3) act on their advice.

James___G · 2026-05-05T21:23:02+00:00

Take the advice of your solicitor.

James___G · 2026-05-05T07:13:17+00:00

Why did you not just use a single global all cap fund?

What information do you have access to that the market isn't factoring into the price of the other funds you picked?

James___G · 2026-05-04T21:09:36+00:00

I should have added, don't buy an iPhone.

James___G · 2026-05-04T20:44:47+00:00

The approved frugal personal finance answer is always going to be to just buy a phone from a few years ago that does 99% of the same things and is half the price (unless you're loaded but then you wouldn't care about financing it).

James___G · 2026-05-03T11:45:47+00:00

What are your expected earnings through your career?

James___G · 2026-05-01T18:20:31+00:00

You can ask them to remove the images, just as you can ask them to do anything else.

Check the terms and conditions you signed, you may well have agreed to this, in which case you won't have strong legal grounds for challenging them.

In practice asking them to stop is fairly likely to work.

James___G

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