Help please-useless estate agents! (V.long)

£Ronnie

Hi all,

Please can someone advise me...I am having a nightmare with our estate agents, and now I am wondering if there is someway I can get out of the contract I signed?

Basically they have not done what they should be doing, it took them 3 weeks to put a for sale board up, two weeks to get any viewings, not following up viewings, lying about what viewers are saying, and now because I have said twice thati am not happy with the ways things are going (nicely and explained why)he is treating me like !!!!!!. :eek:

One couple came for a second viewing the other day and told me they had waited four days for the ea to get back to them about an appointment for a 2nd view!!!!
The next viewing ea didnt bring a key!!
We are not getting the service he told me (verbally) that he would provide.
There are many more things annoying me but i dont want to lose your attention altogether..;)

For Sale boards in this area are changing to sold in two weeks approx and 95% of all boards say sold, our house is in very saleable condition and now there are three other eas phoning asking for our business.

I have signed up for 1% sole agency, 1.75% multiagency for 10 weeks. 4.5 weeks ago.
i would be happy to go multiagency but would feel sick if I ended up paying them 1.75% if someone who has already viewed it, went on to buy it. Also the other ea's are offering me 1-1.5% multi. (Would only offer 1.5% at first valuation)

So after my long rant I suppose my basic question is: Can I legally pull out of a contract even though it does not specify what the ea will/should do to sell my house?? (ie I cannot prove that he is breaking his part of the contract)

TIA
Ronnie

Jorgan_2

If somebody has viewed the property when it was on a sole agency and they later put an offer in, after you have gone multi, they were introduced during the sole agency, therefore that is the fee you should pay.

Arrange a meeting with your agent, explain to him your concerns & that you want out of the contract, or you are prepared to give them a week to get their act together or you will be going elsewhere. This will have to be a measurable increase in standards & perfomance agreed by the pair of you. See if they will let you go multi straight away. Make sure you speak to the agent and don't just instruct another agent straight away, you may have signed upto a sole agency for an initial period of 10 weeks + notice period, check your contract.

£Ronnie

Jorgan wrote:

If somebody has viewed the property when it was on a sole agency and they later put an offer in, after you have gone multi, they were introduced during the sole agency, therefore that is the fee you should pay.

This is music to my ears but the terms of business would lead me to believe otherwise....they state
"If you instruct any party to sell the property whilst our sole agency agreement with you in force, the agreement will be deemed to have been changed to a multiagency and you will be liable to pay us at the agreed multiagency rate."
Would you agree?

Re termination timescales- yes it says I must give 16 days notice of termination,



But where do I stand when they are doing such a bad job?

Jorgan_2

As I have said before, speak to your agent. If one of my vendors came to me with the catalogue of errors that you have, I would have no hesitation in letting them out of the contract, I may see if we could do something on a joint or multi basis. Talk to the agent, explain how unhappy you are and that you want to resolve the issue.

As their agreement says , 'if you instruct any other party etc you will be charged a multi agency fee etc.' If you breach the terms of their contract you will have to pay extra, if they let you out of the contract or change/alter the contract (in your favour) then try to get this pointed changed as well.

I can't re-iterate enough, speak to your agent, don't do anything that will leave you liable to pay a higher fee or worse, two sets of fees. Get any changes in writing.