withdrawal fees

yummy-mummy-amy

Hi, hoping someone can help me out. I put my house up for sale in april 2010 on a 3month agreement, the estate agents said it was a 6month agreement. Anyway, when I told them to remove it in oct 2010 due to personal reasons of not being able to sell at the time they decided to tell me i was in a years contract with them!!! (I don't think so) and therefore I had to pay a withdrawal fee of £150.

Due to the reasons for pulling out of sale we had no way of paying this all in one go, and CAB managed to get them to agree to£50 upfront and then £1 a month until our situation improved. We have been paying them the £1 a month for nearly 5years now and I rang them today to find out the balance etc to be told that we now owe the same as we did 2years ago!

In Jan 2013 we owed them £90.55, on 13th May2014 we owed them £72.55 and as of today we owe them £90.25. They said they have been receiving payments each month BUT we haven't added the VAT to the amount owed - errr we were told that was included with the £150 total. And they can't explain why it has gone back up. Would they be adding interest to it? are they allowed to do this?

Has anyone got any ideas on what I can do to get this sorted with the rip off merchants? I know the £50 was paid in cash, but I do have the bank statements (well can get them from bank) showing the payments that have been made monthly over the past 5years. They wernt happy when i said i cant afford to pay it all off in full today and didnt seem to like my answer that my situation hasnt changed!

HappyMJ

Yes they can add interest if agreed in the original contract you had with them.

You could choose not to pay any more and see if they take it court to recover it that way.

TrickyDicky101

I don't think they have added interest - you say the 'debt' was originally £150. Add VAT onto that and it would be £180 (with VAT at 20% - check what VAT rate was applicable at the time).

In May2014 you owed £72 (but without VAT of £30 @ 20%) so take off the last 12 months' payments and add the VAT on:

72 - 12 + 30 = £90

All depends on what was agreed by the CAB and whether this was in writing and you have a record of it. Otherwise, it will be what was in the original contract with the EA (which would almost certainly need VAT applied to it).