Estate Agent Fees reduction for poor service?

Dan-Dan

if you signed a contract , and you pay only what you feel fair , if they are ruthless enough , you will get taken to court for the remainder , no doubt at all

nonnatus

Absolutely agree with Dan-Dan. All the EA HAD to do was introduce you to a ready, willing and able Buyer, which they did! They will get their ENTIRE fee for doing that because that's what YOU AGREED to up front. Doesn't matter how much you liked what they did or anything else.


You signed to say you'd pay X if Y happened. Y has now happened so pay up!!

ReadingTim

Tomlewis007 wrote: »

We w[STRIKE]h[/STRIKE]ere so unhappy with the lack of support for the estate agent that we w[STRIKE]h[/STRIKE]ere going to move and got quotes from others and they w[STRIKE]h[/STRIKE]ere £1000+ cheaper. We only stuck with them because after 3+ months the buyer finally got his mortgage offer in place.

It sounds like you've discovered that cheaper doesn't always mean better. Good luck with trying to negotiate a reduced fee, but unless there are any performance conditions which they failed to meet, you're unlikely to get anywhere. You paid them to find you a buyer. They did.

MSaxp

I would agree that the agent is paid to introduce a buyer and they did, since the property was sold. I assume that if the service wasnt what you wanted, you could pull out of the sale anytime and take your custom elsewhere.

I have to admit that I do not see what the agent did wrong in this case. The agent can, at best, only check that the buyer has a mortgage agreed in principle. In reality that is hardly proof of anything, as you can get one online or in a branch within 10 minutes. I have just bought a propety and it took me 3 days for teh bank appointment and 3 days for the mortgage to be underwritten. If the agents have asked for proof that I can afford the purchase (i.e. ask for bank statements and payslips) I wouldnt be too happy, but that might just be me. Overall, I doubt the reason for the delay was applying for a mortgage and not sure what the agents could have done about the buyers delaying.

As for communication, I wouldnt rely on the EA for communication, the only official communication is from the solicitors.

By all means, feel free to complain and raise your concerns with the agents. Only you know what the service you received was like. They might offer a discount as a good will gesture, but I think you had more of a case if you raised it earlier and not after the sale was completed and you received the bill.

Consortium

googler wrote: »

Please tell us why you think the EA and Solicitor should be on equal fee terms, if that's what you're suggesting?

I absolutely agree that the EA and solicitor should not be on the same fee.

First let's do a comparison using my ongoing house sell.

My Estate Agent's Service:

Marketing:

Poor marketing using photos taken on a basic camera and a write up that I returned to them with more spelling and grammar corrections than you would expect from a 7 year old.

A different salesperson for every viewing, none of whom where familiar with the property (which is absolutely unique) almost all of whom called me in to answer questions. (I was always next door as I work from home and would vacate for the viewing).

Company director called me after 3 weeks to advise dropping the price, despite the fact that he had never even driven past the property and, over the course of the conversation, revealed the he had no knowledge of key features of the property.

The eventual sale of the property, following a viewing which was largely conducted by me, to a buyer who was already familiar with the property, as he had come to price up for a job at the house before it had gone on the market and had told me that he would have loved to buy it then, only hadn't put his house on the market at that time. i.e. they got lucky and happened to have the rightmove listing at the point of sale.

Summary: No expertise, skill or care shown. Their own best interests at heart. Completely dependent on Rightmove & Co.

Negotiation:

Had I settled for the offer that the EA told me, in their expert opinion, that I should take, I would be £22,500 worse off.

Summary: Incompetent


Vetting Buyer:

At the point of accepting the offer I was told, following my specific enquiry, that the buyer had a mortgage offer in principle and was in a position to proceed with the application immediately. This information was vital in my decision to remove the property from sale. Over a month later, after chasing and chasing I discovered that the buyer did not have their end of year accounts and therefore hadn't applied for the mortgage.

Summary: Incompetent, possibly dishonest.

Sales Progression:

Only one unsolicited call from them, in which they had absolutely nothing to report.

At the point that I discovered that one month in no mortgage application had been made and no LA search (there is a five week delay in my area) had been ordered I told the agent that the buyer had until the end of the week to arrange the valuation or I would put the property back on the market. The next day the agent called to arrange the valuation. Yesterday (almost three weeks later) I was called by the agent to say that they had 'made a mistake' the 'valuation' had in fact just been a homebuyers survey and the real valuation was being arranged for the first week of October

Summary: So conveniently incompetent that it smacks of dishonesty.

Best interests:

The EA clearly has their own interests at heart and are willing to risk tens of thousands of pounds of my money in order to secure a few hundred quid profit.

Qualification:

Unaware of any qualification which is not attainable from a very short course or through a yearly membership fee. Otherwise, the ability to wear a cheap Matalan suit, be, at best economical with the truth, at worst completely dishonest.

Peace of mind: Absolutely no piece of mind that the agent is acting competently or in my best interests.

Fee: just over £2000 + VAT. Would have been more but as I have said they are incompetent when it comes to negotiation.

Costs: You kindly detailed most of those for me.

Solicitor's service:

Sales progression:

Has responded quickly and accurately to all enquiries and has kept regular contact with (and now pressure upon) buyers solicitor. Has had immediate and accurate answers to all legal/procedural questions and has swiftly dealt with any questions specifically about my file.

Best interests:

Absolute legal and professional requirement to act upon my instructions and to advise me with my best interests in mind.

Piece of mind:

Confidence that the solicitor is acting on my behalf and competently

Costs:

Office, advertising, admin staff, professional indemnity, membership of the law society, ongoing training not to mention qualifying in the first place. Nowadays a three year law degree cost up to £27k in fees, plus living costs. Then theres the LPC - £12k and another years living costs followed by a two year training contract on a low wage. Could cost up to £50,000 to become qualified.

Qualification:

Trust me, I have a law degree. It's no walk in the park.

Fee: £400+VAT

Now let's look at your justification of an estate agents fees. In short you describe a hugely inefficient service whereby the client for which you are successful pays for all the costs of the clients who are unsuccessful and of the listing leads that you fail to convert. How is that fair?

Now, ( I assume you are an estate agent yourself) the only reason that your business model has survived for so long is not because it is effective, it really is one of the most massively inefficient industries in existance. It is not because you hold any particular special skill set or qualification or even professional integrity, it is purely because, traditionally, the only way for a seller to get his property noticed was to have an agent promote it. The world is changing and now the estate agency business model is unjustifiable, if you don't wake up to that then you will simply go under and trust me, the 'general public' who you refer to with such derision will not miss you.

So in answer to your question, I personally do not think that EAs and solicitors should be on the same fee. The solicitors service is worth so much more.

SailorSam

Estate agents must be rubbing their hands together when they watch house prices rising.
Ok some may quote a set price but isn't it more normal to charge a percentage. Can there really be twice as much work involved when they're selling a house for £200k than for the £100k house.

Gonzo1987

Tomlewis007 wrote: »

Hi All,

We are due to complete on selling our house on the 28th Feb and I just received the statement from the solicitors and I am really not happy with paying the estate agent the full amount.

We accepted the offer on the property in October last year, the estate agent not check the buyer had a mortgage in place because he has bought several properties through them. This obviously caused a huge delay while he then got his finances in order but this was not filtered through to us straight away.

This and basically them not doing there jobs, chasing the buyer feeding information back to us, and at points even telling lies and we have this in emails too.

Where do I stand on withholding payment and trying to negotiate a lower fee?

Many thanks

You didn't have to stay with the agent, and you could have asked for the property to be remarketed if you felt the buyer was taking too long..... why didn't you do that?

Gonzo1987

Tomlewis007 wrote: »

To the earlier point yes we did raise our dissatisfaction to them and pointed out it was causing us undue stress.

The point is they did not do MANY other things we had to constantly chase them for updates and for them to chase the buyer too.


I've emailed the branch manager anyway lets see what happens.

Putting if we should or should not pay the full amount to one side.

What are the next steps?

We pay them the amount we think is fair......... they don't like it and take us to court for the remaining amount?

And they win because you signed a contract agreeing to their fee?

Is the agent part of a redress scheme?

jjlandlord

Deleted (mixed up)

Gonzo1987

jjlandlord wrote: »

Not too useful at this point: If a court of law passes a judgement that is obviously binding.

No, but at this stage the OP is just annoyed, so if they really felt like they had a case they could raise it one of ombudsman schemes, although, I personally don't think they have a leg to stand one, as the agent seems to have done what the vendor required which was find a buyer and sell the property for them.