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What happens if you find your own buyer?
HarriettPotter
Posts: 184 Forumite
I have just put my house on the market. It's rented out to some tenants who are due to leave in July. We signed up with the agent on Friday and lo and behold the tenants have told us today that they want to buy it...
What normally happens in this circumstances.. will we have to fully go through the agent? Surely if we have found our own buyer what are we paying for?! The tenants are waiting on a mortgage offer so we will obviously wait until we know more before we proceed.
I would be grateful for any insight/advice/experiences before we tackle this so if anyone can help me it would be great.
HP
What normally happens in this circumstances.. will we have to fully go through the agent? Surely if we have found our own buyer what are we paying for?! The tenants are waiting on a mortgage offer so we will obviously wait until we know more before we proceed.
I would be grateful for any insight/advice/experiences before we tackle this so if anyone can help me it would be great.
HP
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Comments
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Depends what agreement you have with the agent, is it sole/multi agent or sole selling rights.
If sole selling rights then yes otherwise no.0 -
If that is a letting agent wanting the money, I've heard of this before. It's because they introduced them to you. It works like that in offices if you have an agency temp then the temp applies for a job on your noticeboard, you still get to pay the agency 10-15% of the first year's salary as if you'd placed the advert with them and they'd sent the applicant along.
However ... I have, here on these forums in the last 2 weeks, read that this might be one of those "unfair terms" as deemed by the Office of Fair Trading.
Maybe if that was, whoever posted it before will pop along and link to it.
Or, you can use the search at the top. Try going into Search, Advanced Search and search for the exact phrase "unfair terms" and similar relevant phrases. And pin the search down to the last few weeks. See if it yields results.
Or, you can do what somebody else on here did. Quit the house so far as the agent was concerned. But in reality they bought it. They even owned it (by a couple of days) while emptying their entire belongings out of the house, doing a full inventory check out with the agent and driving off... round the corner for an hour or so, then back to the house and unpack everything again. JUST to avoid paying the agent. Class!0 -
Well our tenants are due to go in June anyway, and we have had such problems with the letting agency that we have given them notice anyway.
I am asking where we stand with the actual estate agent, and if anyone has had any experience. We only put it on the market and signed on Friday - and the tenants said they want to buy it yesterday!
Surely the agents fee is dependent on their selling it? If I have found my own buyer I can't see how the fee is justified?
Just wanted a bit of advice before I discuss it with the agent.0 -
If you have signed a sole agency contract with the agent you should be ok. If you have signed a sole selling rights contract you may have to pay their fee..0
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Again if you have signed up to sole selling rights then the only people, including yourselves, allowed to sell your property are the agents. you need to check the agreement to see when you can terminate it.
Check your agreement.0 -
How did the tenants find out it was for sale ?Any posts on here are for information and discussion purposes only and shouldn't be seen as (financial) advice.0
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If you have signed a sole agency contract with the agent you should be ok. If you have signed a sole selling rights contract you may have to pay their fee.
This is correct but check your Agency agreement and beware. Estate Agents are legally required to define their meanings of the above terms and sometimes slip in an extra clause. The 'normal' reading of 'sole agent' is something like:
"You will be liable to pay remuneration to XXXX, in addition to any other costs or charges agreed, if at any time unconditional contracts for the sale of the property are exchanged:
With a purchaser introduced by us during the period of our sole agency, or with whom we had negotiations about the property during that period, or
With a purchaser introduced by another agent during that period."
All's fair there but sometimes an extra clause appears like:
"With a purchaser introduced by the vendor (other than those stated at the time of instruction)."
It has been commented that this is an unfair term but it is used by some Agents and means that you are liable to their fee regardless of where the sale comes from. Unfortunately just seeing the term 'Sole Agent' is not enough. The best advice is always read the Agency agreement before agreeing to anything. In this case you need to check what you've already signed.0 -
Thanks - the agreement is on its way so I will unpick it with a fine toothcomb when it arrives!
We told the tenants before Christmas that we were going to sell - we gave them early notice verbally and are just about to give them notice officially through the letting agent (totally separate from estate agent). They knew long before we actually signed up but only just got their mortgage etc sorted.
Typical isnt it!
HP0
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