Selling house - Estate Agent Problems Advice Please

Aiadi

A friend is having an awful time with her estate agent. It is a reputable (supposedly) agent with a chain of offices around the country (Scotland). She has had her house on the market with this agent for nearly 6 months with only one viewing one week in and nothing since! Now she has asked for feedback and been told that she needs to drop the price. She did this weeks ago, not heard anything since. The market is admittedly poor at the moment but several other big houses have sold this year and not a single viewing seems odd.

My friend wants to switch to another agent but has been told she has to give one month's notice, pay a penalty of £200 and if she sells within 6 months she has to pay their commission as well as the other agents! The contract unfortunately supports this.

Considering she has lost £500+ for the initial photos and brochures these further costs seem ridiculous. They are very tight for money, already making a loss on the house and can't afford to pay two lots of commission.

I feel that the agent has not kept their side of the contract and my friend should therefore not be forced to keep her side of the contract! Is there any way to go with another estate agent without being forced to pay the original one too/being taken to court? Who can she complain/report this to?

We'd be grateful for any advice, thanks.

In_For_A_Penny_2

Aiadi wrote: »

I feel that the agent has not kept their side of the contract

What aspect of the contract have they breached?

ellie27

Where in Scotland are you?

Which agents?

Is the house on rightmove?

If so, then surely the house is way overpriced if there has only been 1 viewing in 6 months?

Aiadi

What aspect have they breached?

1 viewing in 6 months has to be indicative that they've not been trying. The house is in excellent condition. It was featured in a magazine for it's history and beauty! Surely 1 viewing in 6 months, when similar houses have had 10 viewings in that time is 'not doing enough' ie. not fulfilling their duty to show and sell the house!

somethingcorporate

Post a link and lets have a look...

The collective intelligence of MSE should help a bit.

Aiadi

May be I'm not making this clear but rather than dissect the property and it's price etc I'm asking about the contract law and whether anyone knows of a situation where the contract can be made null and void by the agent not keeping their side of the bargain. Assume for my purposes please that the property price/condition is perfect and the agent is to blame. Can anything be done?

ellie27

Do you mean the seller thinks lots of folk have perhaps called up interested in the house and the agent has not bothered to set up viewings for them?

I cannot imagine that would be true.

somethingcorporate

With all due respect if the pictures and price were perfect you would have had more than 1 viewing.

What part of the contract have they explicitly broken. They dont get paid (very much) until the sale goes through so they have little incentive to not show people around.

In_For_A_Penny_2

All you can really expect from the agent is to advertise the property. If people don't want to view it, it says a lot more about the property than the agent.

What do you expect the agent to do differently?

Aiadi

I'll give an example. One of the owner's friends is a registered buyer with the agent concerned to receive marketing emails yet this friend has never received an email or been told about the property. We all know of lazy agents. You'll just have to take my word for it; the question is how to go about cancelling this contract and not being asked to pay commission if another agent sells it!

Aiadi

somethingcorporate - yes they don't get paid commission until they sell but it seems they have already made £700 out of my friend having just done one viewing!