Estate Agent role after sales agreed

andynclaire

Hi, what exactly is the estate agents role after you have agreed a sale on your home? We are hopefully nearing the end of our home buying process but since we sold our home I have hardly had any communication with them. I have had one reply out of the three emails I have sent them asking for updates and that's it. Even when we had the house on the market I did all the viewings. The only thing they have done is put the property on right move, one week in the paper and sent me a letter confirming the offer we accepted on our house! That's it! Not exactly earnt their huge bill that will be coming our way once we complete!

Better_Days

Sales progression is in my view just as important as getting viewers and offers.

Communication is key and unfortunately some EA's are pants at keeping their clients up to date with the progress of the chain.

I was in a chain of 7 when we sold and my EA told me what everyone's positon was in the chain and what was outstanding, and kept me updated at least weekly. However, Haart who had 3 properties in the chain were a complete PITA. They repeatedly misled everyone and managed expectations very badly. It is very stressful buying/selling but at least if you know what is going on then you are not left hanging.

I would ring your EA not email and ask for the info you need or go in and make a fuss if you think it is worth it.

Unfortunately until you get to the position of 'sale agreed' you wont find out how good the EA is at sales progression. This is where personal recommendation is invaluable. Hope your sale completes shortly.

ethank

A good EA does more work after the sale to keep it all together!

rl926

The Estate Agent we bought through has been in touch with us regularly throughout the process. I think it's totally reasonable to give them a call and ask them to give you regular updates. Good luck!

kingstreet

An agent's contractual responsibility is usually discharged when it finds "a ready willing and able purchaser, able to proceed to unconditional exchange of contracts" and anything it does after that is to help to achieve its commission payment as early as possible.

Sales chasing post-offer is entirely optional, as my ex-boss who owned a twelve branch network used to say.

DRP

Agree with a poster above: communication by email should usually only be secondary to phone calls.

I have always found that email is too easy to ignore! Get on the blower and make them earn their fat fee.

Annie1960

kingstreet wrote: »

An agent's contractual responsibility is usually discharged when it finds "a ready willing and able purchaser, able to proceed to unconditional exchange of contracts" and anything it does after that is to help to achieve its commission payment as early as possible.

Only if you are mad enough to sign a 'ready, willing and able' contract.

With a sole agency contract, the EA does not earn their commission until exchange, so they do whatever they need to do to keep the chain together until exchange.

verulamium

Any EA that stops working upon finding a so called buyer isn't worth using. When we sold we demanded an EA who would only earn their commission upon successful completion.

EAs job is to keep the chain together and update both buyer and vendor on the progression of those on the upper chain.

LandyAndy

Annie1960 wrote: »

Only if you are mad enough to sign a 'ready, willing and able' contract.

With a sole agency contract, the EA does not earn their commission until exchange, so they do whatever they need to do to keep the chain together until exchange.

Exactly. I struck that clause out of my contract and replaced it with 'on completion' as the point at which their commission became due.