Selling your home can be a tricky business – sometimes a little too tricky. As the autumn house hunting season approaches, TheMoveChannel.com’s August podcast interrogates estate agents from around the world to find out the things that go wrong when putting your property on the market.

From awkward encounters to adult toys left on the table, TheMoveChannel.com’s Property Inspector uncovers the real estate horror stories no one dares to mention in public.

(Some names have been removed or details changed to protect people’s identities.)

This story came from an estate agent at Think Slovenia:

“I had an interesting experience once viewing an old house right up in the mountains of Slovenia – really remote, about 25 minutes to the valley floor up winding mountain roads. We arrived at the seller’s house. An old farmer who lives locally was going to take us to the house to unlock it. I called his name as I could hear someone outside and he came round the corner from the barn with both hands in the air covered in blood up to his elbows.

“He was in the process of slaughtering a pig.

“Suffice it to say, the rather timid English buyers didn´t buy the property.”

Animals in the barn can be a problem but apparently, so can people in the bedroom. One UK agent related this:

“I once showed a house and went into a bedroom which was pitch black… then I realised that the granny was sleeping inside! The rest of the family didn´t mention it when I started to take the clients round the house!”

Sometimes, you don’t have to go into the bedroom for things to get embarrassing:

“I took a house on the market where the daughter was a newly successful glamour model so they had pictures of her (she was probably about 17) proudly plastered all over the house, living room and kitchen with her… assets out.  Very odd. What do you say to that?”

Spain has its fair share of slip-ups too:

“Many agents over here share properties and often an agent has never been to the house or met the owners. We know of one agent who had travelled a couple of hours to meet his sharing agent at a dilapidated house but the sharing agent didn´t show up.  The other agent then proceeded to break into the house. The clients were baffled by the agent’s actions and wanted to wait for the other one to show up.  The “break in” agent said that if they wanted to wait, they were welcome to – and drove off!”

Once you have a buyer interested, you should always make sure he is above board:

“I have met with a Russian businessman who wanted to buy a house near us but he was not keen to get involved with lawyers. We arranged to meet and he literally sat there with a suitcase full of cash that he wanted to hand over for the house. I explained that he would need to go through some legal process to buy the house but he flatly refused.  I still wonder whether he had €700,000 in that case or whether it was just some elaborate ploy…”

And no matter what happens, always be polite:

“A chap I used to work with went on a valuation and was chatting to the lady owner and he asked her when she was due.  Needless to say, the lady wasn´t pregnant – simply a bit on the plump side – and rather surprisingly she decided not to instruct the agent to sell her house.”

With so many horror stories piling up, the Property Inspector tracked down David Rick from Creative Property Marketing, which sells properties in Spain, to find out how to sell a house without any funny business getting in the way.

Three simple steps to sell your house smoothly

The three P´s – presentation, price and paperwork.

This is absolutely vital – not just the presentation of the house when you have viewings but almost more important is the need to present your property in photos online as this is where it will be seen first. The decision to move on or stop and click for more details is almost always based on a decent photo.

It stands to reason that price is a key. If your house costs too much money you will not get any enquiries. If you are getting enquiries but not selling, then it will almost always be something to do with the home.  If your asking price is a little higher than it should be, the chances are you will struggle to get interest.

This is particular to Spain (especially Andalucía) but if you haven´t got your paperwork 100% sorted anyway, it will inevitably lead to a cancelled sale. There is nothing worse than getting a buyer and then seeing them wander off into the sunset because your paperwork isn´t up to scratch!

Click here to listen to the full investigation.