Re: Estate Agents

liames

House been for sale for 6 months with Estate Agent. Still not sold. My sister wants to buy the house from me. Does she have to go through Estate Agent or can I sell the house privately to her.

MortgageMamma

take your property off the market and tell the estate agent you are not happy with the service. Check on your contract if you will owe them fee;s. You sis won't have to go through the estate agent she can buy it from you privately.

[Deleted User]

MortgageMamma wrote:

take your property off the market and tell the estate agent you are not happy with the service. Check on your contract if you will owe them fee;s. You sis won't have to go through the estate agent she can buy it from you privately.

I thought you had to wait a few months? Otherwise anyone can avoid paying EA fees doing that. But I am no expert, I may be wrong. Check out the small print in your contract...Good luck!

chant1l

I would love to see the court case where the EA has to show how they introduced your sister to your property..........

damien

Hi, I have had my house on the market since just before Christmas, I am not at all happy with the agent and would like to ditch them! they have me in a 20 week contract, but can I cancel with them due to them not withholding their side of the deal?
for example, they had a sign up within 12 hours without asking us if we wanted it, after promising to take it down the next day - it is still there!
The guy came to take photos, took him the grand total of 30 seconds to do the whole house!
He then promised to send us all the details and info for us to check it was all ok before it was uploaded to internet e.t.c. - it was online same afternoon, we only got it sent after a phone call and 2 emails!
and finally amongst other things, we have had 1 viewing in 6 weeks
thanks in advance for any advice

chops05

Just write to the agent, say you are diappointed in the house not being sold and that you want to take it off the market. If you sell after it has been taken off of their books the agent has to prove that they introduced the buyer ie did the buyer receive sales details from them or did they see an advert for the property. As it is your sister I feel that it would be very difficult for the agent to prove that they informed her that your house was on the market.

Have a read through your agency agreement just to make sure that you don't have to give something silly like 3 months notice before it is taken off the market!!

I used to be a negotiator for an estate agent and clients used to take their properties off all the time as they had either come to the end of their agreement and wanted to try another agent or clients had simply decided to not move. Most EA are far too busy to keep track of properties that have come off the market.

chops05

damien wrote:

Hi, I have had my house on the market since just before Christmas, I am not at all happy with the agent and would like to ditch them! they have me in a 20 week contract, but can I cancel with them due to them not withholding their side of the deal?
for example, they had a sign up within 12 hours without asking us if we wanted it, after promising to take it down the next day - it is still there!
The guy came to take photos, took him the grand total of 30 seconds to do the whole house!
He then promised to send us all the details and info for us to check it was all ok before it was uploaded to internet e.t.c. - it was online same afternoon, we only got it sent after a phone call and 2 emails!
and finally amongst other things, we have had 1 viewing in 6 weeks
thanks in advance for any advice

Just a bit of advice - You should really start your own thread and not hijack this one! :rolleyes:

In answer to your question - write to the agent and tell them you are not happy with the service. State that they haven't kept to the agreement that was made with you.

Are you on a sole agency basis? You may want to ask if they will allow you to go on a joint sole agency with one other agent. If they don't agree to this, you can either stick with them for the 20 weeks and then give them notice or take it off now but you will not be able to put it with another agent until the end of the 20 weeks.

damien

Appologies, I thought I could carry the topic on, still quite new to these forum things!
Thanks for the reply, so basically I am stuck for 20 weeks no matter what!

chops05

All you can do is write to them and see what their reply is. Say you are not happy with what they have done so far and they may be a bit sympathetic and let you go with another agent.

If that doesnt work then you could always tell them you are not moving now but put it on with another agent. Tell the new agent that you can't have a board for x number of weeks and that it cannot be advertised until the orignal agents agreement runs out. If the agent finds out just plead ignorance and say the new agent was getting the property details ready for when the orignal agency agreement expires

courtjester

mmmm...chops05, that all sounds a bit complicated and potentially asking for trouble.

The key here is that a written contract with your agent does not have any terms in it that says the agent must make you happy, or that you must be satisfied with their service.

You only have the right to cancel the contract in accordance with the termination conditions written down - which in most agents contracts don't exist - there is very little you can do about having a contract you have agreed to for 20 weeks unless you can show that the agent has fundamentally done nothing or worse has done something criminal or fraudulent.

Bad service will not enable you to break this contract and the suggestion that you should go 'under cover' with another agent until the 20 weeks runs out is simply asking to pay 2 commissions when you sell instead of one - don't do it.

A better course of action would be to call a meeting with your agent and inform them politely of your concerns and complaints to give them the opportunity to fix it and gear up their marketing for you - if you are unable to get a satisfactory response, invite them to release you from the contract instead. That is the ONLY way you can be free of their terms. Make sure you get their written confirmation of the release.

If you have a standard SOLE AGENCY contract, you *can* advertise the property yourself privately at the same time (either via a local newspaper or a decent online service) quite legally - tell your agents you are doing this as this will also help to encourage them to try harder for you. If you find a buyer privately, you won't have to pay the agents commission anyway.

Next time, don't agree to such a long agency period (6-8 weeks is reasonable for sole agency) - you don't have to accept any terms in an agents contract just because they are written down - if they want your business, they will negotiate on the terms.

chops05

I useed to work in estate agency and this used to happen all the time - customers complained and the EA I worked for at the time normally went joint sole agency.

We found out that some customers had put their propeties on with another agent whilst under a sole agency- they were told to take it off with the other agent or be liable for two fees. No further action was ever taken.