Foul Play/case for legal action

lincroft1710

badaz52 wrote: »

Quite a few general ones I assume such as say I accepted an offer from you on my house, you instructed your solicitor to draw up all the contracts, you had a survey completed and exhausted perhaps £500+. Unless I had good reason to back out you could sue me for the costs you incurred.

No, vendor could back out at any time or accept higher offer prior to EOC, vendor is not responsible for buyer's costs. This happened to me on different occasions as a potential buyer and as a seller. Dozens of threads about this on this board

Which is all TW said, if I backed out and later sold to someone they had introduced I would owe them 3% for marketing costs, surveys, solicitors fees etc. Obviously in my case they would have had a difficult case to prove this when they never introduced the buyer.

They never introduced the buyer as you didn't sell to their buyer. Also there was a clause about forfeiting 50% of a reservation fee if you (or any other P/Xer) defaulted on P/X deal.

Anyone can make an offer with conditions/clauses right? getting people to agree to them is another story. I agreed to TW's because my house couldn't sell, there were viewings, lots of them but the price was obviously too high. Once the price dropped it generated the interest and a buyer was found.

But this is the whole point, and as you say, you did agree to their conditions. Which put you in a worse position than a vendor accepting an offer from a private buyer if that vendor were to renege on the deal prior to EOC.

The P/X terms were far, far above those of a normal vendor/buyer, however I don't think they were too onerous and certainly not outside the law.

JQ.

badaz52 wrote: »

And what if I had backed out before EOC or was I not allowed?;) then what would have happened? IMO my future chances of selling it would have been slim based on the price fluctuations. Your suggesting that my rights to my own property were relinquished the minute I signed the PX.

Then the EA would not have received a fee from their client TW.

It has nothing to do with your right to own your own property. It's to do with the fact that you were no longer the client of the EA.

badaz52

The EA believe the complaint should be with TW.

GDB2222

badaz52 wrote: »

The EA believe the complaint should be with TW.

Mandy Rice-Davies' response springs to mind.

badaz52

Haha very true. I'll gather up all my evidence and take it to the ombudsman and we'll see what happens.

Like I said the EA had no right removing me as a client and putting TW in my place without written notification of the contract ending. It should have been a new contract to market the property for TW and my contract should have ceased at that point.

The EA's obligations to me would have then vanished and we wouldn't be having this conversation. So of course I believed that I would still be treated as a client right up until I exchanged.

lincroft1710

Any response from Ombudsman or TW?

JQ.

Any update Badaz52?

badaz52

Hi Sorry for the late update, the complaint is with the ombudsman, we have had two letters back from them up to now. The 1st one acknowledging the complaint and the 2nd one telling us that they have written to the EA and asked for all the documentation related to the sale of the house.

Fingers crossed, not spoken with TW yet. I'm waiting to see what responsibility lies with the EA first. If the EA did pass that offer on but only to TW as according to the EA, TW were their clients and not us although I disagree then as TW did not yet own the house and had not exchanged contracts they failed to inform us of this and it could have financially changed proceedings.

The way I see the PX process working is this:

1. You view the property you want
2. Make an application for PX
3. House is valued, TW make PX offer
4. You accept the PX offer subject to their conditions and instruct your solicitor to take care of the legalities
5. TW contact your EA if it is on the market, explaining that you have accepted their PX offer to sell to them on completion of your new home
6. As per TW T&C's for PX you HAVE to exchange within 28 days for the offer to stand.
7. Once you have exchanged in the interim between your new home being ready, TW will market your home and try to find a buyer, you have already commited to sell to them so no longer have any further involvement.
8. Completion

What actually happened was we didn't exchange contracts with TW within 28 days due to delays with the solicitors so that term in the actual PX offer was void. TW never pressured us about it either. TW started to market the property at phase 4/5 and kept all developments private.

I do not believe TW had any right to offer a property, negotiate with a buyer and accept an offer without notifying the legal owners at the time which was us. After we exchanged contracts with them it would have been a different story because it's then a legal commitment.

The longer this goes on the more I'm beginning to think that TW are in the wrong here but there is no question that the EA had a hand in it too as the EA agreed to offer a property for sale for a client that did not own it yet. The minute we signed the PX agreement TW assumed that it was now their property to sell regardless of at what stage the contracts were at. In actual fact I could have backed out at anytime but they never anticipated that and fortuntely for them we went through with it all somewhat oblivious and mislead as to what was actually going on.

GDB2222

badaz52 wrote: »

I do not believe TW had any right to offer a property, negotiate with a buyer and accept an offer without notifying the legal owners at the time which was us. After we exchanged contracts with them it would have been a different story because it's then a legal commitment.

I am afraid that that is not the law. Anyone can enter negotiations concerning your house without notifying you.

You are much better to argue about the EA's obligations under the Estate Agency Act 1979. You might find this link helpful as it tells you about the EA's obligations. Remember that you can't claim (successfully) for something just because you think it's right. You need to show that the EA has not done what it ought to have done under the law.

https://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/general/oft031.pdf

lincroft1710

badaz52 wrote: »

6. As per TW T&C's for PX you HAVE to exchange within 28 days for the offer to stand.

What actually happened was we didn't exchange contracts with TW within 28 days due to delays with the solicitors so that term in the actual PX offer was void.

We've explained this one to you before!

TW sets out their T & Cs, you couldn't comply, but TW decided to waive this particular clause, so that you could complete the PX. Nothing wrong, nothing illegal. It will be seen as TW being flexible and realising there was a problem which was not your fault.