Seeking partial refund of Estate Agent Fees - Advice gratefully received...

Monkeysocks42

Did they say they would advertise your house, find a buyer and sell your house so you could move? Did they do that? It would appear so. Not sure why you think you should be entitled to a refund because they didn't do these things the way you assumed they would. You say £5k for a 10 minute visit to your house but you didn't agree a fee on an hourly basis. You agreed a fee based on how much they could sell your house for. Would you have preferred they took several months and hundreds of "10 minute" visits before they sold it? Would you feel that better justified the fee?

davidmcn

SweatyGoans wrote: »

But £5,000 for a 10 minute visit to a house is fair value? I shouldn't expect more?

If you think the fee is too high, the time to quibble about it would have been before you signed the contract.

p00hsticks

SweatyGoans wrote: »

But £5,000 for a 10 minute visit to a house is fair value? I shouldn't expect more?

Remids me of the joke about the mechanic who's called out to look at a peice of broken machinery. He takes a look, then gets a hammer and hits it in a specific spot. The machinery starts working straight away. When the owner is presented with the £500 bill he says 'How much ? Just for hitting it with a hammer ? ' And the mechanic replies ' No, it's £5 for hitting it with the hammer and £495 for knowing where to hit it .....'

hazyjo

Agree, the fee seems disproportionate for what they do, but you agreed to it. Was it around 1%?

Did you negotiate the rate when you instructed them?

They did presumably advertise your property, so not just paying for their visit? Ten mins for pics and to measure up? That's quick. My last one was there for much longer. Did you get three quotes (usually advised)?

Going through your points:

• Minimal pro-activity and poor communications - the agent never never called me unless I chased them first, and this often took several attempts – They rarely followed up Pretty standard. They do as you ask. They rarely check up on the chain unless there's a problem or query, or they're worried about their commission.
• Agent seems to have an issue with staff retention which meant I ended up finding out that agent X had left only after this had happened - there was no hand-over which meant I was left explaining the situation to the new agent who then spent time getting up to speed and slowing the process down. Annoying, but maybe just bad luck. I never seemed to deal with the same person either, although they were all still there. And the left arm never knew what the right was doing. Again, pretty standard sadly, and files not always kept up to date.
• Our agent had a very poor relationship with the agent further down the chain, communications were clearly broken to the extent that our agent refused to call the other agent and all communication was via email (despite being physically located almost next door to each other!) - We ended up having to call our buyer's agent directly as this was the only way to get a straight answer (and this information often conflicted with the information our agent provided us with) May be general rivalry. Who knows. I am someone who wants everything in writing too as don't trust people to admit to or remember what they've previously told me. Makes life easier getting it in writing, and usually easier to update online files.
• Our agent was unable to correctly do due diligence on the complete chain (we were told our buyers buyer was living with their parents until an exchange date was discussed when it turned out they were renting - this in turn cost us money to pay a portion of their rent and allow us to complete on time) Not their fault. They were probably told that info. Why was there a completion deadline? Why couldn't you have completed later or had a longer period between exchange/completion?
• The agent sometimes mistook me for another seller and started discussing a separate chain (at least twice) Well, they are human. I get confused about things at work sometimes and mix meetings up in my head. God knows what I'd be like with lots of clients!
• The agent at one point asked me to contact my sellers solicitor – even though we were top of the chain You wouldn't be able to contact anyone else's solicitor, so they shouldn't be advising that. I certainly wouldn't be writing to complain about it, or asking for a discount over it. Just naivity or stupidity really. Plus you were at the top - that's just niggly that they forgot, again nowt to write home about.
• We were given a very ambitious view of when we could exchange which I disputed and the agent was wrong. Our chain above us all thought we were ready to exchange when we were nowhere near. They'd all come up with a date and everything lol. I put them right, and spoke with my seller. When did they give you that timeframe? Near the end or at the beginning? I suppose optimistic is a good quality. I tend to lean towards pessimism - not good.
• To top it all off, the agent has managed to lose the keys to our house - meaning our buyer, when they move in, has no way of knowing whether the keys to their new house are in the hands of a disgruntled ex-employee Careless. But as mentioned above, buyers really should be changing locks. Could be an ex-tenant, a disgruntled cleaner, an ex-owner, neighbour, who knows. No point in finding reasons re this one key, it's all the other owners and keys buyers should be worried about. Maybe get a promise out of them that they will replace the locks when your buyers move in (pointless doing it before) - although, as said, that should be something they'd expect to do and pay for anyway.

googler

hazyjo wrote: »

Agree, the fee seems disproportionate for what they do .....

Did you get three quotes (usually advised)?

OK, so you think the EA's fee is disproportionate to what the selected agent has done, but on the other hand, you're perfectly happy to call out three agents to your home and leave two, possibly three of them, counting the cost of visiting you (and others) to no avail.

The cost of two out of three agents receiving nothing for a certain percentage of their valuations has to be met from the fees charged to those who actually do pay them, surely?

Dean000000

Assume their gas & electricity bill, time spend photographing, editing photos, producing floor plans, rent, taking phone calls (as well as landline fees) showings and rightmove fees are gratis too!

csgohan4

OP they sold your house, that was the end point, unless you had any other performance related issues written in contract, there is not much more you can do than ask for a gesture of good will.

May I suggest you sell your house yourself next time and then you won't have anyone else to complain about than yourself

Comms69

SweatyGoans wrote: »

Hi,

Has anyone had any experience / results from contesting an estate agents fees after the sale has completed?
The situation is broadly as follows:-

We have used a bricks and mortar established estate agent to sell our house. They did manage to find a buyer very quickly - no complaints there.
However, the 'after sale' service received since then has been very poor and not been of a professional quality, and certainly does not represent value for money against the £5,000 charge. As such whilst the fees are inline with the % commission agreed (not disputing that) I do not think it represents fair value. Some examples of where I believe the service was below standard:-

• Minimal pro-activity and poor communications - the agent never never called me unless I chased them first, and this often took several attempts – They rarely followed up - Why would they call you?
• Agent seems to have an issue with staff retention which meant I ended up finding out that agent X had left only after this had happened - You wanted to be consulted on staff changes?... - there was no hand-over which meant I was left explaining the situation to the new agent who then spent time getting up to speed and slowing the process down.
• Our agent had a very poor relationship with the agent further down the chain - competitors not getting on, surely not?! , communications were clearly broken to the extent that our agent refused to call the other agent and all communication was via email (despite being physically located almost next door to each other!) - We ended up having to call our buyer's agent directly as this was the only way to get a straight answer (and this information often conflicted with the information our agent provided us with)
• Our agent was unable to correctly do due diligence on the complete chain (we were told our buyers buyer was living with their parents until an exchange date was discussed when it turned out they were renting - this in turn cost us money to pay a portion of their rent and allow us to complete on time) - That's your problem.
• The agent sometimes mistook me for another seller and started discussing a separate chain (at least twice) - Presumably you had the same name...
• The agent at one point asked me to contact my sellers solicitor – even though we were top of the chain - and?
• We were given a very ambitious view of when we could exchange which I disputed and the agent was wrong. - irrelevant
• To top it all off, the agent has managed to lose the keys to our house - meaning our buyer, when they move in, has no way of knowing whether the keys to their new house are in the hands of a disgruntled ex-employee - irrelevant.

I should add that this will be an attempt to recover fees already paid - I am letting my solicitor pay the estate agent the full fee (as it certainly was not in my interests to put the overall house sale in jeopardy by contesting this before completion)

My premise here is really that the service received is simply not worth the money charged.

Has anyone tried to recover fees on this basis? Has anyone succeeded or is this likely to be a waste of time? If you succeeded, what route was successful?

Any thoughts / advice gratefully received.

Regards
SG

I disagree with you completely. You paid a small amount for the primary purpose of their role - ie find a buyer.


The rest is irrelevant.

stripeyfox

Most of you "complaint" is nothing but conjecture and irrelevant. Your main beef appears to be that they didn't do much for the chunk of commission they received?

Just tough I think. My friend once paid their estate agent fee when the estate agent sold the house to a colleague without it ever being actually listed. The EA took the details and some guy in the office said "I'll buy that" and offered the full price there and then. EA still got their money despite doing "not much". They sold the house, as agreed.

I'd move on if I were you.

SweatyGoans

Ok folk. You can stop now! The community has spoken....

Appreciate the feedback
SG