House selling/estate agent problem

flowmeter

Hello All

We've had our house on the market for about 5 months now. For the past 2 months we've had a buyer who's house is also up with the same agent as ours. During that time, although we've had viewings, we feel the estate agent hasn't been putting their full effort into selling our property, instead holding out so has to get commission on both ours & our buyers houses.

Last week, our buyer finally got a buyer. but, it fell through after a matter of days (due to a divorce apparently). So, now we are back to square one again.

We are really unhappy with our current agents, but, they still have our buyer so to a certain extent have us by the short & curlies!

Do we risk giving them their 30 days then going with another agent ? If after that time our buyer still wants our house, will we have to pay 2 agents commission fee's ?

Any advice appreciated (including how to stick rockets up estate agents bottys!)

frugal_dougal_3

flowmeter wrote:

Do we risk giving them their 30 days then going with another agent ? If after that time our buyer still wants our house, will we have to pay 2 agents commission fee's ?

If you switch agents now you only pay commission fees to the one who found your buyer, unless your contract says different to this.

You need to terminate one contract before signing another otherwise they both might regard that they were not the sole agent in the sale and both might try to charge commission. This would normally equate to more than 50% to each.

dougk_2

Be very straight with the agent and tell them that you are not happy and that you are not prepared to put all your eggs in one basket as it were. Also say if they don't market you property more actively then you will cancel the agreement. Insist on adverts in the local paper and taking new photos of the property and re-wording the particulars.

flowmeter

Thanks both for the info.

So, by giving our estate agents their 30 days notice, do you think it will spur them into action & get them abit worried? - bearing in mind they are still trying to sell our 'buyers' house & have two lots of commission at stake ?

Are we likely to be shooting ourselves in the foot by doing this ?