Estate Agents Commission

clarence34

Hi, I was wondering if anyone had any advice....

We had our haouse on the market last year, we decided after 3 months to tke it off the market as was the wrong time to sell and the agency was so rude and pushy.

Last week we put it back on the market with a different agent.

We had 2 viewings, an offer was made which we accepted, Great!!

Our old agency contacted us telling us that the buyer we have now viewed our property last summer when we were on the market with them so we need to pay the commission to them.

In the contract it said that after the agreement had ended, if a buyer who was introduced to us buys our property we would have to pay them. There are no time constraints stated though. Does simply showing someone round constitute as an introduction??

Any ideas, advice would be welcome as I dont really know where to go from here.

Thanks for reading.

Robert_Sterling_3

At first sight it looks as if the first Estate Agent has a case.
..................................................................................................................
This part of the message was added later.

At second sight the first Estate Agent has NO case

See Themaninthestreet message below.

alm721

do you have a copy of the contract from the old EA? if so what exactly does it say?

ILW

clarence34 wrote: »

Does simply showing someone round constitute as an introduction??

Any ideas, advice would be welcome as I dont really know where to go from here.

Thanks for reading.

Yes it does

nic_santorini

yes, unfortunately the estate agents will say they were the finders for your potential buyers even though they came back - my question is how did they find out who was buying your house? They are so greedy, it annoys me. You may be able to negotiate - a friend of a friend had a similar situation and ended up paying them half.

maninthestreet

No,the Estate Agent does not have a case:


http://www.newsontheblock.com/articles/20080512_1

Robert_Sterling_3

An excellent post from Themaninthestree for the man in the street.

googler

I'd be interested in how the first agent found out - A YEAR LATER - that the viewer they'd brought in had bought the house through the second, apparently competing, agent....

PINGLEIST

clarence34 wrote: »

Hi, I was wondering if anyone had any advice....

We had our haouse on the market last year, we decided after 3 months to tke it off the market as was the wrong time to sell and the agency was so rude and pushy.

Last week we put it back on the market with a different agent.

We had 2 viewings, an offer was made which we accepted, Great!!

Our old agency contacted us telling us that the buyer we have now viewed our property last summer when we were on the market with them so we need to pay the commission to them.

In the contract it said that after the agreement had ended, if a buyer who was introduced to us buys our property we would have to pay them. There are no time constraints stated though. Does simply showing someone round constitute as an introduction??

Any ideas, advice would be welcome as I dont really know where to go from here.

Thanks for reading.

Have you mentioned this to your new EA, they should be clued-up (probably tried it on themselves) and know how to deal.

besonders1

"The statutory Regulations, do not allow claims for commission in circumstances where they merely introduce the eventual purchaser to the property. In order to be entitled to claim a commission, an agent must instead introduce the purchaser to the sale transaction itself, not just the property."

That says it all. The one who claims the commission should be the estate agent of whom an offer was made through. I suppose in this market many EAs will be trying it on to intimidate sellers into paying when they don't have to, watch out for them offering you a discount, this would be a sure sign that they are doing this.

Brizzo

Thank you for that post, I have another thread on this forum but the basics are pretty much the same. My EA has offered me 25% discount on their fee. To cut a long story short, I am in the process of selling privately to a work colleague who is a FTB so terminated my sole agency contract with the EA. They looked at a few properties through my EA (as they sell at least 75% of properties in my area) and now due to an error of a letter sent by my solicitor have realised they coincidentally sent my house details out on a mail shot around the time we privately agreed the sale and now are trying to claim their fee. I am tomorrow posting my complaint to the OEA.