Sole agents expired

terrierlady

after 6 months on the market i think my sister has been very fair with her agent who had a four month tie in period she now wants to try elsewhere, it may be the market but change is good as rest and she did ask if they would go multi will other agent, they are asking an extra 1% to do so plus another 21days before this can happen as notice period.They up till now have paid all costs so would loose out but What is the normal way of changing agents are there time limits to dis instruction and any liability to old agent if she just goes ahead with new agent?

pie81

Hi

You need to read the EA contract very carefully. Some things to watch out for:

1) You may find that the 4 month tie in period does not start from when the EA was first instructed, it starts from when you give them notice of termination. So you would need to give notice of termination now and then they would still act as EA for another 4 months, only after that can you get rid of them. It all depends on how the tie in is worded in the contract.

2) You may find that they have a clause saying they still get paid a fee if you sell the house within X months of them ceasing to act as EA. This is a really cheeky clause and shouldn't be there but sometimes it is.

3) There will probably be a clause that says that if you sell the property to a buyer they "introduced", even if the sale happens after they have ceased to act as EA, you still have to pay their fee.

So you would need to be sure that after you appoint the new agent, you are not going to be selling to any buyer the old agent "introduced" - or else you might have to pay the fee to both the old and the new agent.

It is not clear what "introduced" means, they might argue it's anyone they sent the details to or even anyone who saw the house on their website. So this is quite a tricky one.

4) Before leaving this EA, has your sister tried getting them to increase their efforts? how many viewings has she had? any offers? has she asked them what they are doing to market it? has she tried "mystery shopping" them? (I.e. get a friend to phone as if a buyer, ask for details of properties in that price bracket, see if they recommend her property)