Estate Agent Fee's

MooseMan

Hi,

I am after some advice before we go into battle and possibly take the estate agent to court. Me and my partner went to look at a house before ours was even on the market. We where at that point going to rent ours and buy another. We liked it so much we decided to sell ours as not to have 2 mortgages. While we where there the couple selling wanted a bungalow like ours so we invited them over to have a look. In the mean time we decided to put our bungalow on the market. And got the same estate agent that was selling theres involved. They advertised the house before we signed for them to advertise it. paper work came through a week later. Although we did tell them to go ahead and do this. Some of the photes where not what we wanted and I ended up even taking some myself. And I also signed a sole agency agreement. I put both me and my partners names as the vendors as it's jointly owned but he only got my signature at the time as my partner was out. Anyway two weeks later the people that where selling the house rang me up as I left my number with them and said they wanted to do a house swap and we pay them the difference of cost. We agreed to this and started the motions. Initially the estate agent was fine and said just pay our advertising cost and time and thats it which we where happy with. Anyway there director has got involved and they have now come back and are wanting the 1.5% agencey fee for selling the property. I am unwilling to pay this as they did not sell the property or introduce the buyer to us. We have now got a solicitor involved and are unsure what to do as this could cost over 3K for them doing nothing! is it worth taking them to court if I loose it could cost £££££

Help

rpc

You'll need to be clearer on the timeline, but if you had a sole agency contract and your 'buyer' was not introduced to you via the agency then you don't have any commission to pay. It would be different if you gave them sole selling rights.

You could simply write to them saying the above and leave them to make the next move. It would be fair to offer to pay reasonable advertising costs as they did incur these on you behalf (but offer without prejudice, save as to costs).

DVardysShadow

MooseMan wrote: »

Hi,

I am after some advice before we go into battle and possibly take the estate agent to court. Me and my partner went to look at a house before ours was even on the market. We where at that point going to rent ours and buy another. We liked it so much we decided to sell ours as not to have 2 mortgages. While we where there the couple selling wanted a bungalow like ours so we invited them over to have a look. In the mean time we decided to put our bungalow on the market. And got the same estate agent that was selling theres involved. They advertised the house before we signed for them to advertise it. paper work came through a week later. Although we did tell them to go ahead and do this. Some of the photes where not what we wanted and I ended up even taking some myself. And I also signed a sole agency agreement. I put both me and my partners names as the vendors as it's jointly owned but he only got my signature at the time as my partner was out. Anyway two weeks later the people that where selling the house rang me up as I left my number with them and said they wanted to do a house swap and we pay them the difference of cost. We agreed to this and started the motions. Initially the estate agent was fine and said just pay our advertising cost and time and thats it which we where happy with. Anyway there director has got involved and they have now come back and are wanting the 1.5% agencey fee for selling the property. I am unwilling to pay this as they did not sell the property or introduce the buyer to us. We have now got a solicitor involved and are unsure what to do as this could cost over 3K for them doing nothing! is it worth taking them to court if I loose it could cost £££££

Help

I have highlighted in black the irrelevant parts of your argument. These are things which, if you follow through with this are points which do not take your argument further forward and just get in the way of explaining clearly.

In red I have highlighted the argument which is relevant. You acted on the strength of the advice from the agent and presumably have now spent money on surveys. If you are unhappy at the fee, your primary option is to pull out of the swop, but acting on the advice of the agent, you may have a case for compensation on abortive survey and legal fees. But only if your evidence of the agent's advice is good.

The other option is for the agent to claim only 1 fee, split between the 2 owners. Particularly if the other owners were made aware of your property before you signed up.

MooseMan

Cheers we have not spent any money on conveyance yet. The only thing I have done so far is to organise to port our mortgage and borrow the extra money needed. We have paid for the mortgage company to do a survey on their house. £300 the seller of the house we want to buy says as far as he is concerned the agents had no influence in him making a decision to buy/exchange houses with us. The agents have since just come back with a counter offer to lower the fees to just under £2K due to the circumstances involved. I am quite happy to pay them up to 1K but I still think 2K is unreasonable for what they have done. Just trying to justify if I should fight them and the costs incurred if I lose.

MooseMan

Sorry another bit to add. The timescale of all this has been the last 3 weeks. Also on Friday of last week had decided to pull our house of the market and instructed the agent to remove it as we were not going to sell due to getting married soon and the stress of it all. It’s only since the Wednesday when the people whose house we went to look at got back in touch and said they wanted it. He never told me when we signed what the agency period would be and we never got anything telling us in writing. He has since told us its 14 days. But we would still be liable for up to 6 months for the agency fee if they saw the change of ownership on the land register. They only other thing I can think of is to pull both propertys of the market for over 6 months. They deal again.

googler

MooseMan wrote: »

I am after some advice before we go into battle and possibly take the estate agent to court.

Surely they would be taking you to court for the fee they reckon you're due to them?

And I also signed a sole agency agreement. I put both me and my partners names as the vendors as it's jointly owned but he only got my signature at the time as my partner was out. Anyway two weeks later the people that where selling the house rang me up as I left my number with them and said they wanted to do a house swap and we pay them the difference of cost. We agreed to this and started the motions.

Initially the estate agent was fine and said just pay our advertising cost and time and thats it which we where happy with. Anyway there director has got involved and they have now come back and are wanting the 1.5% agencey fee for selling the property. I am unwilling to pay this as they did not sell the property or introduce the buyer to us.

Yes, but you hired them as sole agents, then went against this and sold it outwith your contract

We have now got a solicitor involved and are unsure what to do as this could cost over 3K for them doing nothing! is it worth taking them to court if I loose it could cost £££££

Sounds like you know what you need to do. Reach an agreement with the EA whereby you pay them somewhere between zero and 1.5%, depending on how hard you and they negotiate.

Depends on how rigid you and they are on your respective principles......