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Estate Agent Fees
Comments
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On the face of it, the EA has been doing work for you for 6 mths.
You're trying to find a way out of paying them anything at all for this work.
They're trying to recoup some or all of their losses, having paid out sundry amounts relating to your sale.
Don't you feel honour-bound to at least cover their costs/expenses?
I am not really persuaded that anyone who is engaged on the basis of a positive result and works for 6 months but does not actually deliver anything is entitled to be paid for their failure.
JumbleBumble0 -
Jumblebumble wrote: »I am not really persuaded that anyone who is engaged on the basis of a positive result and works for 6 months but does not actually deliver anything is entitled to be paid for their failure.
JumbleBumble
When you hire a company - you hire them for a reason. In this case I'd assume they were expected to market the property on their site and probably RightMove etc... I expect they were also expected to handle enquiries from prospective buyers which requires man hours. These costs should be covered (unless of course the EA has done none of this). Or are you proposing that those employees who made or received calls, composed the listings etc should go unpaid because they were unsuccessful?
Is the OP disputing this or the sale commission though?0 -
Jumblebumble wrote: »I am not really persuaded that anyone who is engaged on the basis of a positive result and works for 6 months but does not actually deliver anything is entitled to be paid for their failure.
So you agree that the fees from all the successful sales should cover all the outlays on the unsuccessful ones?0 -
On the face of it, the EA has been doing work for you for 6 mths.
You're trying to find a way out of paying them anything at all for this work.
They're trying to recoup some or all of their losses, having paid out sundry amounts relating to your sale.
Don't you feel honour-bound to at least cover their costs/expenses?
Estate Agents are business people.
They know that if they offer "No sale, No fee, Sole Agency Contracts" there are circumstances where they will do lots of work but get no fee.
(To avoid those circumstances, some Estate Agents choose to charge a fixed fee, whether the property sells or not.)
Personally, I think it's ridiculous to suggest that people should make 'goodwill' payments to estate agents out of honour or sympathy to cover their costs.
Similarly, if my house burnt down I wouldn't make payments to my insurance company out of honour/sympathy, because of all the costs they will have to cover.0 -
So you agree that the fees from all the successful sales should cover all the outlays on the unsuccessful ones?
I believe that that's a viable business model, yes.
There are two ways to go: pay up front and the agent has no incentive to do any more work (the purple bricks model), or pay on success and the agent is invested in making sure there's a successful sale (most high street agents).0 -
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I believe that that's a viable business model, yes.
There are two ways to go: pay up front and the agent has no incentive to do any more work (the purple bricks model), or pay on success and the agent is invested in making sure there's a successful sale (most high street agents).
or there's no.3: Fees and commission: fees for their work in marketing the property and commission IF they sell it0 -
Bad example: Are you not already paying your insurance company? If you're not you don't have insurance.
Eh?
Why's it a bad example?
I've paid my current insurer about £1000 over the last 2 years.
If my house burns down, they might have to pay out £100k. That's a loss of £99k as a result of doing business with me.
If a "no sale, no fee" estate agent fails to sell my house, they might lose £500 as a result of doing business with me.
Why are you thinking that the EA is somehow worse off than the insurer?
(The EA has a business model that is intended to balance their £500 loss.
The Insurance co has a business model that is intended to balance their £99k loss.)0 -
LittleMac13 wrote: »I'll have to double check the contract when I get home!
78 hours ago OP was going to check this (quite vital) piece of info. and still doesn't seem to have got around to it.0 -
If my house burns down, they might have to pay out £100k. That's a loss of £99k as a result of doing business with me.
There business is based on books. They'll have insured another 100 properties on similar rates. The other 100 properties covers the £99k, leaves £1k to cover overheads, taxes and profit. Called pooled risk.
A somewhat different market to the vast majority of EA's who expend money in the hope of generating commission.0
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