What if I have an EA but find my own buyer?

emv

Sorry if this is covered in another thread - please feel free to point me in the right direction if so (I promise I've searched...)

Is there a standard clause in EA's contracts about what happens if you find your own buyer? I have a large network of local families & publish my own magazine which goes out to 10,000 homes locally so want to advertise my house for sale through thsoe channels. But I also think I need the back up of selling through an EA. If I ask each agent what their policy is, am I likely to get laughed at or is there a chance they would negotaite this? I'm not trying to scam this & claim one of their viewers as my own, I promise, but I'd be really annoyed at paying fees for a sale I've arranged.

My magazine comes out in early March & I'd really like to sell by the summer so it's not so easy to try the informal route first....

princeofpounds

It depends on the contract you have agreed. Normally you would still have to pay the fee, unless you negotiate.

EAs may be willing to negotiate, but they will be afraid that you are just after free marketing. So they might insist that you still pay a minimum marketing fee no matter what happens.

If you do agree for some sort of arrangement, be ultra careful about buyers involvements with EAs. If they so much as walk into the EA office or pick up the phone the EA may very well try to claim the introduction and charge full fee.

LisaLou1982

When i was working as an EA we came across a situation every so often where a seller might have people interested in the property before we started marketing.

Generally in that instance, we would exclude any buyers that the seller could name on the marketing agreement - therefore if they bought the property there would be no argument as to who introduced the buyer.

I think the best you could hope for with what youre proposing would be to go with an agent who charges £x amount upfront and then a further percentage when sold - if sold by them

MissMotivation

Also check that you are not signing into a Sole Selling Rights agreement rather than a Sole Agency Agreement as with the former you would be liable to pay the EA fees whether they introduce the buyer or not!

G_M

It depends on the contract you have agreed. Normally you would still have to pay the fee, unless you negotiate.

Not so. As MissMotivation says above. Most agreements mention 'sole agency agreement' which means only one agency should be instructed, and if another agency finds a buyer, the first agent can still charge their fee.

If the contract mentions Sole Selling Rights, then the first agent can charge their fee if the property is sold, irrespective of whether it is another agent or the vendor himself who introduces the buyer. This is nowadays quite rare.

chappers

most agencies will also set up dual agency or multi-agency agreement but will charge a higher percentage for the benefit.

pie81

From a legal perspective the way to do this is to make sure the EA contract (1) says they have sole agency rather than sole selling rights and (2) says that their fee is payable only if the property is sold to a buyer they have introduced.

However even with these provisions in the contract, it could still end up being very difficult to determine whether a buyer has been introduced via the agent or via your magazine. For example if your eventual buyer gets sent the property details by the estate agent/sees them on the EA website, and also sees them in your magazine, the EA will argue that they introduced the buyer and so are owed the fee.

To solve this, I would suggest putting some sort of provision in the agreement that says the EA will be deemed to have "introduced" a buyer only if the buyer has contacted the EA about the property. (However you may find it difficult to get an EA to agree to this, as this sort of provision would allow them to be cut out quite easily...)

Not easy! but give it a go. It's all about negotiating with the EAs... don't be intimidated by their standard form contracts, you can always suggest amendments to them!