Terminating Estate Agent Agreement

thelem

Contractually the advice above is good, but it frustrates me that it is so cheap and easy for a vendor to pull out.

The estate agent has put together marketing material for the property, conducted viewings and found a suitable buyer. Not just someone ready, willing and able, but someone who was acceptable to vendor and hasn't done anything wrong. So the estate agent has done their job, but now won't get paid.

The buyer has presumably spent a couple of months and a good chunk of money on the conveyancing process and is now excited to move, but will now be told it's not happening. Hopefully they've been sensible and not ordered a new custom made sofa or anything like that. If the buyer is also a seller than their buyer's move is now also threatened or delayed, and so on down the chain. They might have used a no sale - no fee solicitor, but that just means that the cost is spread across all their clients. The work still needs to be paid for.

Even as a vendor you've now got to go through the whole sale process again to find a new buyer. If it were me I'd have pulled out of the purchase and gone into rented for 6 months, meaning that when I found my new property I'd be chain free. But that's just me, you're perfectly entitled to do what you've done.

Smodlet

Be very, very aware of EAs' contractual conditions. The ones I have dealt with have all had a clause which means, even if you ditch them and sell to someone they have never heard of within six months of terminating your contract with them, they still get their several kilos of flesh. They are almost as evil as lawyers, imho.

eddddy

Smodlet wrote: »

The ones I have dealt with have all had a clause which means, even if you ditch them and sell to someone they have never heard of within six months of terminating your contract with them, they still get their several kilos of flesh.

No - that's wrong (or at best, that's grossly misleading).

If a buyer is introduced after the EA's contract is terminated, no fee will be payable to the EA (whether it's within 6 months or otherwise).

However, if the buyer was introduced during the EA's contract period, in some cases a fee might be payable to the EA.

Smodlet

Guess you have dealt with more reasonable EAs than I have, edddy. I would certainly go over the contract with a fine tooth comb, OP.