Foul Play/case for legal action

badaz52

Just one more thing. I found my original contract with the EA.

It says it is a continuous contract and either party must give 21 days written notice to formally end the contract. I never ended it and neither did they.

The PX agreement was just a written offer with conditions from TW. One being that they will take over the marketing of the property. At this point they were not permitted to finalise any onward sale as they did not legally own the property yet. They could arrange one yes but I would have to be informed by the EA marketing it if the onward sale was arranged prior to EOC. TW never marketed the property themselves, independantly of my EA I should add.

Unfortunately for EA and TW the law specifically states that up until EOC nothing is legally binding. Although the PX offer came direct to me and not through the EA I don't think this could be taken as breach of contract as I only accepted the PX offer, according to my contract with the EA it would only be a breach if the actual sale and EOC was conducted and completed outside of the EA (which it wasn't) then I would owe them money for advertising etc.

When TW showed the EA the PX agreement, it should have just been taken as a written offer that was accepted by me but as per the EA act, until EOC they should have told me in writing another offer was received (from private buyer) and didn't. At no point did anything I signed give either the EA or TW permission to keep me in the dark about proceedings and that is exactly what they did.

So there you have it, my contract with the EA must still have been in place. Furthermore TW must also have taken out a contract with the EA to take over marketing and agree that they would pay their fees on completion. Even if TW's contract with the EA stated something along the lines of "This contract to market xxxxxxx takes precendence over any prior contracts and renders those void" The EA would still have had to formally end our previous agreement in writing or we would have been told we need to write a letter to them and I would have to acknowledge that with a signature. None of this happened.

The EA was marketing the same property on behalf of two clients so there was a clear conflict.

JQ.

Not really. Again there's no new info there, I never thought the EA was included in the px contract.

It's your actions of signing the px agreement which then handed responsibility of the marketing of the property to TW and then letting TW take over the marketing and then having no further discussion with EA that ended your contract.

However, even if you can prove the contract was still in force (very doubtful in my opinion), you have made no loss. I can't re-iterated this strongly enough. The EA does not owe you a duty of care on how you spend the money they secure on your behalf. The fact that you accepted TW's stance that they don't negotiate on PX's is your decision to make, it's not true, because they will negotiate, you just chose not to. There's no law surrounding PX deals, developers can set whatever groundrules they like, they can also choose which ones to break. It's all marketing.

As I said earlier in this thread, if you're wanting cash you're going after the wrong people. The only person who owes you a duty of care over the price you paid for the house you bought is the surveyor who valued it for you.

It would be interesting to see whether it was possible to get compensation down that route, as generally they are sued by purchasers for points of fact, such as missing the subsidence or damp etc. Only the mortgage Co's normally sue for over-valuations and the difference would need to be greater than 10% for them to get interested, as it's generally accepted that there is a 10% margin of error in valuations, so you might also struggle going down that route.

badaz52

The mortgage surveyor valued it at £199,995, I assume next doors mortgage surveyor probably valued his at £183,000 as that was the price he paid for it. My mortgage valuation says that they do value the property at £199,995 and houses of this type are generally worth between £180,000 and £200,000.

GDB2222

badaz52 wrote: »

One being that they will take over the marketing of the property.

What exactly is the wording there?

badaz52

JQ. wrote: »

It's your actions of signing the px agreement which then handed responsibility of the marketing of the property to TW and then letting TW take over the marketing and then having no further discussion with EA that ended your contract.

developers can set whatever groundrules they like, they can also choose which ones to break. It's all marketing.

The key word there being marketing, the law clearly states that nothing is legally binding until EOC, ownership does not change hands. Therefore it was someones responsibility to inform me of what was going on, I had a right to know.

Like you say the developers can choose which ones to break because the PX agreement is not legally binding but your telling me that I have no rights? I had all the rights in the world to know what was happening to my house right up until EOC and I was kept in the dark and made a mistake on the price I paid because of this negligence.

mustrum_ridcully

GDB2222 wrote: »

What exactly is the wording there?

Yes, what's the exact wording (you can leave out personal details) - not what you think it says or want it to say.

badaz52

GDB2222 wrote: »

What exactly is the wording there?

All I was saying is say you had your house on the market and I made you an offer, I could make you an offer with conditions such as "subject to curtains being left in" TW's offer was subject to "carpets, curtains" and that they could take over the marketing until they legally owned it. I agreed to that as I didn't see a problem, I thought yeah Ok well if they find a buyer with our EA before EOC then we might be able to negotiate a better deal with them if not they will still take it off our hands in exchange for the new one.

But then again, the written PX offer with conditions is still not legally binding until EOC. So all parties IMO have a duty of care. My offer of £199,995 was just as non-committal as their offer of £140,000 for mine. An offer can be withdrawn or changed at anytime if circumstances change before EOC.

The exact wording of the PX agreement:

to follow

decsdad

Hi again,
I can see where you are coming from a bit more now. However as you have said, you signed a px agreement allowing TW to market your property prior to EOC, this is what they did, and found a buyer(albeit a previously interested party). Surely it didn't state that any buyer found would be sent to you to complete the sale. I still think at the point you signed the PX contract, you had made a decision and agreed the deal, which you got. With hindsight, you should have read over the terms of the PX deal, done the sums, called the EA and instructed them to contact the previous viewer with new price then you could have claimed the sale, paid EA fee, ditched the PX deal as you had found a buyer, then negotiated a better deal.
IMO the PX deal is legally binding, it is not a legally binding as a contract of sale, but the rest of it ie you agree to let TW market the property prior to EOC , if you see what I mean. And it is still a PX as they did buy it from you, only for a day though.
I think there was definetly a lack of clarity around the vendor/EA/TW relationship, as to who was selling it until which point, but it is reasonable to assume that the PX agreement you signed, means its TW to market/negotiate (prior to EOC, as per agreement). I think this is what you thought too, as you didn't persue any sale through EA.
I really do feel for you though, but I dont think you'll get anywhere with it.

GDB2222

The question is whether TW 'took over' the marketing, or whether they were allowed to market alongside the OP (which is what he said previously)?

badaz52

I will post the exact wording up later today but one part I do know as exact is this:

We have instructed "name of ea" to market the property on our behalf.

It never said when.