House Selling - Money Saving Tips

Gerrans_boy

Dear All,

I'm looking for advice on the legality and rules associated with advertising property for sale on the web.
We recently set up a local community web site, with classifieds and local news etc. We just added a 'property for sale' section. Anyone wanting to advertise on this site will pay a one-off fee to place the advert. We don't provide any other associated services. The site is a not-for-profit limited company- proceeds going to charity.

Yesterday, the local estate agent phoned to say that we weren't allowed to do this, and would be fined per day for each advert. He mentioned licensing, which seems a bit odd.

I've looked into it a bit- perhaps we have to make sure that the sellers have confirmed they have an Energy Performance Certificate and a HIP before we post the advert? Is there anything else?

I'm very surprised by what the estate agent has said, but I'm not sure where to check what rules apply.

Does anyone have advice on who would regulate this? What sources I should be checking? And whether it's true at all!

Thanks!

not_loaded

The seller of a property is liable to a £200 per day fine for each day they market without having a HIP. That’s all that I know of this situation.

AFAIK your situation is virtually identical to a newsagent’s For Sale postcard display in the window.

I don’t think you’ll get much of a response tacking this query on here. Maybe you should post your own thread. Just click on the [New Thread] button at the top left of the thread list.

johnfernandez

Hi...
The tips which you have discussed are just wonderful.I like to refer such wonderful tips for saving money.The tips will really very helpful to the users who are need for the house and couldn't collect enough money.Please continue to share such information.Thank you for the post...

bluelindabrian

I am thinking of selling my house myself using an internet estate agent - do you have any tips?

mollythedog

My parents are currently trying to sell their house privately as the estate agents only advice is to reduce the price, admittedly they aren't a "big" estate agent so don't have as much clout as the larger ones, but are taking less of a %... Anywhoo, my dads just put an advert in the local paper with a cpl of pics, to test the water, which is actually more than the estate agents have done!
Once the house is sold they plan to move to France for retirement :beer:
I'm not on here to spam the forum but to add value, and learn from others, so I won't put the link in here, but I had an old domain related to selling privately, so I thought what the heck, and setup a website for people to submit their homes for sale for free, no catch.. Thought that if it caught on it could really take off, obviously parents home are on there.

Oh, I was wondering if there was any advice on where to get HIPs from, and floor plans also?
Thanks,
Matt

holes_in_my_socks

Is it usual to have to pay tax on the commission given to an estate agent? I signed up to a 1.5% deal, but then they added on +VAT. Is this usual?

revkalo

Marcus,

Great advice.
I have accepted an offer on mine today and i did the same as you and its saved me over £2000 on estate agents fees alone. Managed to get 1% locked in for 3months.
Just e-mailed the solictor i have used a couple of times to try and get him to reduce his costs. So i will await his response, i want to use him as i know he can be trusted. I agree with you about the big firms, all looks abit dodgy to me.

Take care

K
:beer:

gdubs

Marcus wrote: »

Greetings all. I’ve been using this site for a while now and have managed to save us a small fortune. Years ago I was an estate agent so I thought I’d see is I could write some bits and bobs in relation to my experiences in the hope that it might save people some cash.

Selling Your House

Methods to Save Money

1) Agents Fees
a. All Estate Agent Fees are negotiable. First, check through the local property paper. See which agents get the most business. Are any members of the NAEA. Busy agents who are members of the NAEA would be my first choices. Select the best 3 or 4 agents and phone them up as potential buyers. See what service you get over a week or so as a buyer - that way you’ll get an idea of how they will market and present your property. A good proactive, busy and well managed agent will still have time and resources to post/email you details and phone you with new properties.

Then get them all to Value your property. Tell each valuer that you have other valuations (BUT NEVER TELL THEM WHAT VALUATIONS OTHER AGENTS HAVE GIVEN YOU - AS THEY’LL MANIPULATE THEIR OWN VALUATIONS) and that you are looking for a fee of 1% with no lock-ins. Most agents will try to lock you in - so that if you instruct them to take your property off the market you will not contractually be able to re-market with another agent for up to 8 weeks (especially with corporates). Make sure you get this down to 1 week after written notice. If you are locked in and you then sell your property through another agent you will get sued for the fees.

Agents are sales persons - they will give you great reasons to lock you in and charge you more... but they also need your business - thus you have the power to ask for and get these things.

b. Once your property is up for sale keep an eye on your agent - mystery shop them ie call them up, give a false name etc. and tell them you are looking for a property that matches your own property’s description - see if they push for you to view your property - are they positive and energetic?

The Duel/Multi-Agency myth.
If you become unhappy with your agent’s efforts it may be time to sack them or go multi agency. Tell an agent that you wish more than one agent to market your property and they’ll try and push up the fees to staggering amounts (2.5%+!!).
Tactics - tell your current agent that you wish for other agents to market your property. Tell them that you’ll keep them as an agent only if they will keep your fees at 1%. If they will not, then sack them (you should only be locked in for a week). I’ve never known an agent not to back down in this situation - they’d lose potential business if they let you go.
Now go to some other agents - probably the other agents on your original list - and tell them that “my agent has agreed to let me go multi-agency and my current fees are 1% - would you like to also market my property at 1% multi-agency?” You can guess what the answer will be...

A 1 % saving on the average cost of a property in the UK (currently £150000) will save you £1500 before VAT.

Duel Agency means you’re marketing with 2 agents - multi agency means you’re with more than two. Agents will try and charge you more for either of these - especially in the case of multi.



2) Solicitor Fees
During you initial enquiries with estate agents, ask them for several recommendations each of good conveyancers or solicitors. You don’t just want the name of the firm, but also the name of the specific solicitor/conveyancer. Remember, some agents will have ‘arrangements’ with some solicitors and some will even have their own - so be warned. A good rule of thumb would be to approach solicitors (by name) who have been recommended by different agents - although some solicitors will have arrangements with more than one agent.

Phone the best solicitors and ask for written confirmation of their charges. Take note of how they treat you - do they speak in plain English, are they friendly and do you get their details as promised the next day. And once again - their fees are negotiable - there’s no reason not to ask your favourite contender to shave £xxx off of their fees if you have evidence of more competitive quotes from other solicitors... they may say “no chance” - in which case you need to make a decision as to whether or not the extra charges are really worth it.

A solicitor can make or break deals for you so shop around. It’s very hard to change solicitors once they start the conveyancing process for you... and it will cost you!

And finally - avoid fee busting corporate conveyancing firms - they will most likely slow down the conveyancing process - these are normally call centre and internet based firms. They can save you as much as £500... but as stingy as I am I would never use them.



I hope this is of use to you and I hope that my info is still correct.
I’ll see if I can write something for buyers when dealing with agents and the like.

Regards
Marcus

And finally - avoid fee busting corporate conveyancing firms - they will most likely slow down the conveyancing process - these are normally call centre and internet based firms. They can save you as much as £500... but as stingy as I am I would never use them.

Absolutely - I am currently goping through a sale/purchase and made the mistake of using a so-called conveyancer (call centre manned by students....) initial quote from them looked good but the worry factor and mistakes made make it uneconomical - stick to well known and recommended solicitors/conveyancers....

bnbllck

Hi, Has anyone used housenetwork.com for selling? Its seems really cheap £345 and they use rightmove etc.. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Broondog

I'm thinking of using them too although I'm based in Glasgow and would be the first in the area. There are 2 others also, Hatched.co.uk and Brightsale.co.uk - both have as attractive fees.

Hatched has the best site in my opinion but they are all reasonably good. I'm concerned about some of the small print in using an online agent, and one so removed from my local market. However, I get infuriated when I think of what local agents do for their 1% - not that much sometimes.... your thoughts and experiences welcome as I'm keen to get on rightmove at all costs