Estate Agent Probems

saddo

Hi

Put house on market with Estate Agent A- 5 month ago, had a couple of low offers but nothing serious.(house on for £250000)
Reduced house to £235000
6 weeks ago was told that Mrs Smith had offered £215000 but was still having work done on her property and had not put it on market yet, and needed to secure a mortgage

Agent A was not that helpful and to be honest did not seem interested in marketing property.
We turned down offer from Mrs Smith as I'm my opinion was not in a position to make offer.
2 weeks ago we parted company with Agent A, and he returned keys.
2 days after parting company the agent contacts us with an increased offer from Mrs Smith of £225000.
Again subject to sale of there house and mortgage, I reply saying stop wasting my time and they ask is that a figure I was looking for, I state it was closer to what we are looking for but did not accept offer.

NOW......

we are about to move to another agent (after 14 days)
and have passed over details of all those that made offers through the old agent, including the offer that needed to sell and obtain a mortgage.

Saturday we get a knock at the door from Mrs Smith stating that she understands that we have taken our house off the market and is really keen in purchasing our house.
After spending 5 minutes chatting it transpired that she has offers on her property and does NOT need a mortgage.
I explained that we are in the process of moving agents, she mentions that she is really interested in purchasing and also states that she would be interested in not using the agents.

She has given me her email and seems really keen to move forward.

Where do we stand???

1 Can we sell to her direct without using an agent'??
or
2 Do we send her to new agent and see if we could get a slightly increased offer.
3. Or do we have to go back to the first agent.

Thanks for your help.

phill99

You heed to look at the contract with your original agent. My feeling is that without agent A marketing the property, Mrs Smith wouldn't know that it was available and you wouldn't know that Mrs Smith existed without them. Therefore, you would be liable to pay their fee.

fed_up_and_stressed

You need to check your contract with the estate agents.

It is likely there will be a clause about still requiring to pay them their commission if you sell within a set period to a client they have introduced.

SmlSave

There's normally a set time frame in which the previous estate agents can claim fees from a buyer they first introduced - read the contract you signed.

eddddy

EA 1's contract will almost certainly have words to the effect that:

They introduced (and negotiated with) Mrs Smith, so if you sell to her within the next 6 months (or perhaps longer), you have to pay their fee.

You need to check your new contract with EA 2. If it's 'sole selling rights' or similar, you might have to pay them a fee as well (but it doesn't sound like it).

But if Mrs Smith negotiates with EA2, you will definately have to pay EA 2's fee as well as EA 1's.

Mickygg

Without doubt you will be liable to pay the EAs fees. Otherwise everyone would be doing just that.....get some serious offers in, turn them down, take property off market and go looking for those people who put the offers in.

EAs are all about money and none of them will miss this trick in their t&cs.

Oh and to add, when you move EAs the original EAs should pass on to you a list of people they dealt with....so if any of them end up buying the property they will want their fee for introducing them in the first place.