Changed estate agents and now in a difficult situation

sebbelino

We have been trying to sell our property without any luck and recently switched estate agents - for simplicity I'll refer to them as Agent A and Agent B.

A month or so prior to the switch we had one potential buyer who saw the property 3 times with Agent A, but after the 3rd viewing made no further contact so we assumed she was no longer interested.

A week after switching agents, the new agents (Agent brought the same buyer to view the property again and subsequently she then made an offer through them.

In the T&Cs of both Agent A and Agent B's contracts there is a clause stating something along the lines of 'if at any point you exchange contracts with a buyer that we either introduced or entered into negotiations with during our period of sole agency you owe us a fee'

Does this mean that if we accept the offer we would owe both estate agents their full fees- Agent A because they introduced the buyer and Agent B because they brought us the offer?

The only reason we realised we are in this situation is that by pure chance we were at home for the viewings with both agents and recognised the buyer by sight as neither agent had given us her name. We immediately informed Agent B of the situation as soon as their viewing had concluded and they admitted that the buyer had also informed them that she had seen the property with Agent A. Should they not have referred her straight back to the old agent?

Sorry for the essay! I'd really appreciate any advice here as we're unsure about how to proceed. We'd like to accept the offer but not if it means we have to pay double fees.

CloudCuckooLand

You should have got a list of viewers from Agent A. If her name is on it they get the commission.

If no list, tell Agent B to talk to Agent A and agree a commission split.

Tell them if they do not sort it out between themselves, there will be no sale.

DVardysShadow

Fortunately, you have asked before you have accepted an offer, although you could have done more to forestall the issue if you had asked Agent A to produce a list of their introductions when you sacked them. I would suggest that you ask Agent B to discuss with Agent A and come back with a proposal.

kingstreet

Agent A introduced the potential buyer and is entitled to payment if the sale proceeds to exchange. Agent B can complain but they are/were aware they aren't the introducing agent.

Agent B will be hoping you keep schtum and they get paid while Agent A is in blissful ignorance.

Discuss with both agents prior to any further action and explain to them you will be paying one fee only. If they want to fight over it, or split it 50/50, that's upto them but it isn't your problem.

Give Agent B the opportunity to do nothing further and to hand the sale over to Agent A.

Don't stick your head in the sand and ignore this as they need to sort this out as early as possible.

birkee

Did you terminate your agreement with agent A, before you went to Agent B?
Or did you not bother?
I think the crux will lie there.

gingertips

Tell Agent B that they need to agree something with Agent A & come back to you with response they are both happy with. Then get your lawyer to look it over & confirm it is all ok. Point being you dont expect to pay any more in commission.

Im sure it happens often enough & most agents will have borad agreements in place with other agents locally how they deal with this sort of thing.

Nicki

This happened to us but when we recognised the viewer we immediately raised the issue with agent B and phoned agent A so we had an agreement before offer that only agent A got paid, as turned out to be the case on completion.

sebbelino

Thank you all for the helpful advice. We have spoken to our solicitor and seems like the best approach is to get the two agents to come to an agreement between themselves on the understanding that we are not willing to pay more in total than we would have paid either one individually. Hopefully having the option to turn down the offer will give the agents an incentive to come to an agreement...
Thanks again, Max