Estate agent taking me to court

alfred64

And why on earth didn't you wait one day until your prospective buyer had viewed the property before you contacted the estate agent?

steampowered

As you say that court proceedings have been issued, the absolute key thing you need to do is to file an 'acknowledgement of service' with the court.

If you do not file an acknowledgement of service within the 14 day deadline, you will lose the case by default and a CCJ will be issued against you.

Once you've done that, you need to work on preparing your Defence. Again you have to meet the time limit for filing your defence or you lose by default. It would be a good idea to get some help - perhaps post a draft on a suitable forum.

I suggest posting your story and perhaps a draft Defence on a forum like CAG where you are more likely to get help from legal people as to exactly what you should say in your Defence and the details of court procedures, than you will be able to get on a general house buying forum like this.

Without going into too much detail, it sounds to me that the key issue in your case will be (1) whether you had formally instructed the estate agent and (2) if so, whether you had agreed to T&Cs entitling the agent to claim a fee in the circumstances.

I think your Defence should deny having instructed the estate agents, deny that the sale came as a result of any work done by them and point to the fact that you did not sign any T&Cs. But you should get help from a forum like CAG or somewhere like a Citizens Advice Bureau as to exactly what your defence should say - your initial post is not clear enough, you can defend this claim but you could use help.

dotchas

It seems strange to me for the EA to "think" they had a contract/agreement to sell the property but the did not even know the vendors address

konark

Don't you need the defendant's address to issue a small claim?


Sending it to a solicitor's office is not enough. It has to be served on you personally at your home address. Your solicitor was conducting a specific matter of house conveyancing , not acting as your agent in all matters and has no responsibility to forward your mail.


That said, he's probably just hoping your solicitor will forget to pass it on and he'll win by default.

konark

todayisagreatday wrote: »

You say you dropped your keys in - this suggests you had instructed the agent? Why would you drop the keys in if you had no intentions of using the agent?

The agent was going to value the house, which is easier if he can enter.

Irishjenn

The keys were dropped into him so he could go and actually look at the house. It's a residential house I rented out. I'm not denying speaking to him or that there was a Good chance I would have used him to sell the property, what I'm not happy about is him rushing to the house and erecting a sign before I had the chance to actually think of I wanted to use him or not, I didn't even have a contract to show his terms of business or cost, why on earth would I rush into something without having time to think and some sort of legal agreement. If I did tell him to go ahead and ten changes my mind before 14 days then I wouldve been entitled to do so, it's distance selling therefore a 14 day cooling off period is allowed unless I put in writing I want him to proceed prior to the 14 days which never happened as we have never conversed in writing. The fact is I told him within a day I wasn't using him as I'd sold the house and he continued to push, the level of work he carried out doesn't warrant the fee he is trying to charge and back to the scenario we're he told me before he proceeded with anything I had to pay a deposit so why did he rush ahead without my deposit and were is my contract.

fezster

todayisagreatday wrote: »

You say you dropped your keys in - this suggests you had instructed the agent? Why would you drop the keys in if you had no intentions of using the agent?

Hardly the basis of an enforceable contract. There are many reasons you may drop your keys to somebody. OP has already explained his.

AdrianC

There are many reasons you may drop your keys to somebody, but really only one to drop them to an EA in these circumstances.

Let's look at the timeline from the original post, tidied of the stream-of-consciousness.

OP considers selling property, contacts agent to discuss market.
OP leaves keys with agent.
Agent visits property, gives opinion on value, discusses potential buyers, asks for £200 "deposit".
OP agrees to market property through agent... and then mentions for the first time a putative buyer due to view.
Agent advises against.
Agent erects sign.



BUT...

We do not yet know if the agent's terms were sole-selling or sole-marketing, and we do not yet know if the OP actually identified this putative buyer, despite me asking these questions in post #7. We do not know if the OP used the agent's valuation as the basis of negotiation with this putative buyer.

fezster

AdrianC wrote: »

There are many reasons you may drop your keys to somebody, but really only one to drop them to an EA in these circumstances.

This is not the basis of a contract.

OP agrees to market property through agent... <snip>

This would potentially be the basis of a contract. However, your timeline does not agree with what OP put in his first post:

Irishjenn wrote: »

amd if I wanted to use him I'd have to pay a deposit of £200

Which suggests he never actually agreed for the agent to market the property. Verbally or otherwise.

AdrianC

fezster wrote: »

This would potentially be the basis of a contract. However, your timeline does not agree with what OP put in his first post:

The timeline is in perfect agreement. I made no mention of whether the OP had paid the £200 or not.