2 Agents

KDMG

Firstly, sorry if this has already been asked.

We are trying to purchase a house that is listed with 2 estate agents, one is local, one is online.

We arrange to view the house through the local estate agent and we agreed to put an offer in through them. A day after we put the offer in we received a note through our letter box from the vendor (who knew we only lived around the corner) asking as to contact them.

The vendor asked us to put the same offer in with the online estate agent as it would save them money and they could accept our offer if we did this.
So, thinking nothing of it, we called the online estate agent and put in the same offer.

The offer was accepted by the online estate agency (which we new it would be) but now the local estate agent has found out and is saying that we have to deal through them because we arranged the viewing and original offer was though them.

This means the fee for the sell would be thousands more and could mean that they reject our offer because it is costing them more.

Do the local estate agents have a legal claim? If so is there any way around it?

Many thanks

Senior_Paper_Monitor

Yes / No

next question ?

... and it is not often you find me defending estate agent's rights !!

KDMG

done some further research / discussion with the vendor...I think if the vendor removes the property from the local agents then they are unable to sell the property to us for 6 months, does this sound legal?
What if we where to offer £1 more through the online estate agents?

thanks

Senior_Paper_Monitor

No / no difference

Vintageryan

Depends on the terms of business that the vendor signed with the local estate agents, the vendor will need to read what they signed carefully and look for relevant clauses but highly unlikely not to be covered.


Seems dishonest of the vendor to try to swindle the local agent and if didn't want to pay the higher fees should never of signed up with them. I would guess that the vendor had something like this in mind all along to use a local agent for its marketing but try to pay lower fees.


Do you really want to buy a house from people like this, sounds trouble enough before you have even had an offer accepted.

Mobeer

Local agents introduced you to the property so have a claim for providing a service. Their claim will be with the vendor, and based upon a contract between EA and vendor.

The local agents probably can't prevent a sale, but they can enforce any rights in their contract with the seller. A more likely reading of the contract is that the local EA should be paid their fee for any sale to a buyer the local EA introduced to the seller for a period of 6 months after the EA stops marketing the property. Offering more money via the online estate agents makes no difference to who introduced you to the property.

Lord_Baltimore

Morality aside, you could wait the 6 months.

I do find it hard to feel sorry for EAs, whose fees invariably exceed their input.

ACG

You can do what you like, you have not signed any agreements with the estate agents.
The vendors on the other hand would be the people who signed the agreement.

Lord_Baltimore

ACG wrote: »

You can do what you like, you have not signed any agreements with the estate agents.
The vendors on the other hand would be the people who signed the agreement.

KDMG wrote: »

......and could mean that they reject our offer because it is costing them more.

..........

Gwhiz

Is this for real?

OP, how would you feel if you and your seller got shafted by someone with equally lacking morals and integrity?

kingstreet

In this situation, the vendor may end up paying fees to both agents, if he didn't carefully agree a "who sells wins" agreement at the point of marketing jointly.