Estate agent fees? are we getting ripped off?

sausagefans

AceCobra wrote: »

Hello all,

We put our house on the market in January this year. We decided a few weeks ago we'd take it off, wait until we are married and resell next year. All seemed well until we got a bill from the estate agents on Friday.

“With reference yo the above named property; we acknowledge your instructions to withdraw your property effective 27 February 2007.

We now enclosed our advertising fee of £150.00 as agreed in our Terms Of Business.

Please make payment within 14 days.

Should you have any queries regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact the office on”

When we originally rang round for quotes from estate agents the fee was agreed for .5% on successful completion. Being my first sale I hadn't realised there would be an advertising fee but the agent explained the various options when the house was valued. He left the terms of business with us and asked us to drop them round when we had an appointed solicitor and selected which advertising options we wanted, these included online and news letter options.
The signage, photos, brochures etc where all to be part of the professional fee.
The agent also said they could not put it online/in the paper before we had dropped the forms round.

To cut a long story short we never dropped the forms round as we decided we didn't need to advertise online/paper. This was due to there being 2 other properties for sale in the street and we where getting loads of calls from the agent, I assume due to people seeing the sign.

Having had this bill and inquiring by phone to the agent what the charges where for as we didn't select any advertising options they seemed miffed and said they'd call us back. A few hours later they rang and said they'd mail a full breakdown of charges.

I've taken a picture of the terms of business, based on these should we have to pay anything? I think they are trying to pull a fast one.

Advice welcome.

Martin.

http://img246.imageshack.us/my.php?image=terms1hn4.jpg
http://img72.imageshack.us/my.php?image=terms2cv5.jpg
http://img224.imageshack.us/my.php?image=terms3zb1.jpg

Was the £150 even mentioned in their contract if you did indeed sign one?

AceCobra

sausagefans.com wrote: »

Was the £150 even mentioned in their contract if you did indeed sign one?

Only mention of a £150 was a optional inset in a newspaper for 3 months.

courtjester

None of that looks like 'additional advertising' cost to me - these are all admin overheads that the agents pays for out of their no sale no fee commission.

The only possible exception is the production of special brochures, but I suspect that what they *mean* by brochures is the printed particulars they run off on their office printer - again nothing special here.

Frankly, I would seriously re-consider putting your house back on the market with agents with attitude like this - for whatever reason, inexperience, disinterest in the meaning of their contract, ignorance or just plain dodgyiness, these agents couldn't care less about their clients or their reputation, their only concern is making money for nothing in return.

AceCobra

I guess I should draft a letter saying I'm not happy to pay the fees and why and maybe let them know by phone.

Pity though as their prices where very competitive compared to the other 2 agents in the area .8% and 1% compared to their .5%. Also the advertising was cheaper (or so I thought) with this agent. All in all they seemed very helpful through the process apart from the time they forgot to tell us there were 5 offers on the house in one day and we still thought the previous offer stood for over a week. It’s only when a second viewing came round and asked they current offer and their faces dropped as they had offered 5k over what we told them and had been outbid!

I can see now why they are cheap I suppose.

Many thanks again.

Martin.

AceCobra

Hello,

An oldish thread but it still continues
I've had 2 more letters since the latest saying they are now passing the matter to the debt collection agency.
I have spoke to the agents twice detailing my concerns and apparently the owner was going to ring me back twice but it never happened.

Should I get a solicitor to write a letter?

Martin.

thesaint

Solicitor's letters wil soon exceed £150.

AceCobra

I had thought of that but our Solicitor would send a letter off for free I think.

I have drafted up a respone, I'd be glad if anyone could comment as I'm not good at these sorts of things

"Dear Sir/Madam

RE: Blah Blah

In reference to your recent letter detailing a supposed overdue amount for advertising I would direct you to the request made for a breakdown of these charges.

On the 9th of March 2007 you highlighted these charges for items such as brochures, window display, for sale board, telephone calls etc. These items are clearly listed in your terms of business as being covered in your professional fee entitlement Again referring to your terms of business your professional fee entitlement is payable when a successful sale of our property is negotiated. Obviously our property has not been sold so this fee does not apply.

I would also like to highlight point 4 of your terms of business “No All such advertising will be carried out without the prior written approval by the vendor” I would ask that you supply me with a copy of this written approval, as well as a signed copy of our contract with you as we agreed to no such advertising fee's.

Finally may I say I am disappointed I have not received a call from Phillip as promised on several occasions to discuss this matter and I am appalled at your last correspondence suggesting the matter will be passed on to a debt collection agency. If this line of action is pursued by yourselves you will have lost our custom when we re market the property later this year and our next correspondence will be through our solicitor with a view to issuing proceedings.

Your Faithfully"