Selling without estate agent

oneandonlydebbie

Hi There

This week we put our flat up for sale with an estate agent. We have paid approx £400 for the home report and approx £400 to the estate agent.

However today we were approached by a neighbour who is interested in buying. He said that does not plan to deal with our estate agent and suggested to us that we dont either.

Is this possible? If so how would we go about it? Would it save us a lot of money in the long run?

As you can probably guess we're pretty clueless about this stuff so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

googler

Take it you're in Scotland?

Have you signed a contract with your Estate Agent?

If so, read it to determine what liability you have in terms of fees. It may also stipulate that all offers are to be tendered via that agent. Who's the buyer going to make the offer to if not the agent?

Even if you cut the agent out, you'll still have to have a solicitor to handle the conveyancing, and you'll have to pay them. They won't be able to accept an offer on your behalf if your estate agent has the instruction and contract to sell.

tawse57

If you go to this site https://www.housepricecrash.co.uk and post a question in the general forum I am sure someone will be able to help as I think I have seen people post similar questions over there before.

You might - MIGHT - have a 7 days option to back out of the Estate Agent contract but, if you did, you would have to move quickly re a reigstered delivery letter of your intent I guess. I am not a legal expert so ask over on the other forum as well as you have done here.

oneandonlydebbie

yeah we are in scotland.

Ive just posted on house crash thanks for that.

We were thinking to ourselves though, things happen in peoples lives and circumstances change which may mean they need to take their house off the market. Im sure stuff like that happens every day. We dont have to tell the estate agent that someone wants to buy privately. we could just say our circumstances have changed and we want to take our house off the market??

Thanks for the replies.

googler

So would that be a little white lie or a whopper?

To think that people accuse the EAs of being economical with the truth.....

What does your contract say, if you have one? Do you have a solicitor hired as well as your EA?

oneandonlydebbie

Id say wee white lie.

We actually dont have a copy of the contract (the service we have recieved has been appalling). Im presuming we will recieve a copy in the mail at some point.

Yeah we have a solicitor who is dealing with the estate agent we are buying our new house with.

googler

You've determined their service is 'appalling' in less than a week?

Kaj

How did your neighbour find out that you were selling?

googler

Oh, and the amount of money you'll save will be the EA's fee; but if you instruct your solicitor to take over from the EA with respect to accepting the offer, they may then charge you a fee ......

Yes, how did the neighbour determine you were on the market? Did you tell him, or did he see your agent's sale board?

vet8

When we sold our first house we were tempted to do a similar thing because a work colleague of my OH said it was a good way to save money.

We found a buyer, then lied to the EA that we had changed our minds about the sale. We thought we were SO clever avoiding fees, but then the buyer just disappeared so we had to go back to the EA and pretend that our circumstances had changed again and we now wanted to sell. It was most embarassing and would have been quicker and easier if we had been honest in the first place.

Yes, you save EA fees, but the aggro can be enormous. In order to try and find these people who had said they would buy, I had to go to the council office to try and find these people on the electoral role and drive to their place to find out if they were still interested. They weren't. It was a real pain. Do not do it.

googler

Has the neighbour sold his house?

If not, is it on the market?