Anyone ever taken on an estate agent regarding their fee and won?

kasqueak

Hi everyone. I’m in the process of selling my house. It hasn’t completed yet. 

We decided to put it on the market back in January and after receiving a recommendation from a friend and also having several valuations we went with agent A. During the process of trying to “sell” themselves to us as agents they were professional and polite. 

Straight away I wasn’t happy with the photos or the rightmove listing. I felt it didn’t show the property in its best light, nor did the advert mention the key selling points such as being 5 minutes walk to the station, parking, garage etc. 

The agents refused to sort it out and said they never get complaints about their listings and I should trust them. We weren’t given a ‘cooling off’ period. 

After 4 weeks we’d had 1 enquiry and 1 viewing. A viewing with no feedback as the agent apparently couldn’t get hold of the viewer. 

Multiple times I’d ask about price, strategy, the option of open days etc and every time I was made to feel like the nuisance customer or my emails and calls were ignored. 

During the lockdown the local authority called the estate agent and said they’d be interested in buying my property but their offer was much lower than our advertised price. They didn’t even want to view the property they just offered us X amount. 

We’d found a house we wanted to move to and seeing as we’d had no other interest in our house we accepted the local authorities offer as they were a cash buyer. 

We were tied into a 16 week term with the agent which I now know to be extortionate! (First time seller here!) 

Since we accepted the offer (end of May) my estate agent has done nothing whatsoever to progress the sale. They have made no follow up calls. I had to chase them repeatedly for the memorandum of sale. 

My emails to them go unanswered and if I call they are rude and dismissive. 

We haven’t yet completed but I’m feeling rather p!ssed at having to pay their fee which is nearly £3k when I don’t feel they have earned it. 

They got us 1 viewer and we did the viewing. Then we sold to the local authority (and I probably could have done that directly for the price they offered rather than going up for sale with an estate agent) and they’ve done nothing to progress my sale. 

I want to make a formal complaint to them and how I dispute them earning their fee. 

Has anyone ever taken on an estate agent and challenged the fee and won?
Or am I wasting my time and energy as I agreed to their sales contract when I put my house up for sale in January. Just interested in other people’s opinions here.
Sorry for the essay!

Thanks!  

[Deleted User]

When i used to work in estate agency i came across many people who negotiated lower fees in exchange for not registering a formal complaint.  This would generally only work in the big corporate companies where the local manager wants to avoid the upper manager seeing how useless they are.  

If its a independent company then they have no reason to lower their fee as you are probably dealing with it as high as the company goes anyway.   They may do so to protect their reputation but you are relaying on goodwill at that point. 

Unless the contract specifically states that you will receive the things you are annoyed about then you dont have a leg to stand on.   I have never seen an estate agents contract that guarantees a certain level of customer service or post sale progression

eddddy

You could ask them for a reduced fee as a gesture of goodwill - but I doubt they would agree.

Other than that, if you refuse to pay the full fee and they decide to take you to court, you would need to show that you suffered a financial loss as a result of them breaching the contract or them being negligent.

You could also complain to the agent, and then complain to the Property Ombudsman (assuming that the EA is a member of the Property Ombudsman scheme), and if the Ombudsman decides that the EA has breached any rules of the scheme, and you have suffered a loss as a result, the ombudsman might order them to pay you compensation.


But TBH, it doesn't sound like those circumstances apply, in your case.

AdrianC

The EA advertised the property.
A potential buyer saw their advert, and enquired about the property.
That enquiry turned into a sale.

The EA has done what you hired them for.

kasqueak

Thanks guys. 

I just feel like they really provided me with no service and I’m effectively paying them £3k for a rightmove advert. As someone who works in customer service it just really grates me that they can provide such a poor service yet I have to pay the extortionate fee regardless. 

Oh well I guess it’s a learning curve! 

I’m going to write to the manager of the agency to complain and express my feelings once we’ve completed. But I don’t suppose I’ll even get a reply!

AdrianC

kasqueak said:

I just feel like they really provided me with no service and I’m effectively paying them £3k for a rightmove advert.

Which found you a buyer.

What more "service" do you require than that? The rest is just fluff.

If they'd had to work MUCH harder than they expected, would you be happy to pay more than the contracted fee?
No, thought not.
So why would it work the other way?

I presume the £3k is based on a %age of the sale price? Somewhere around 1.25% or so, maybe a bit lower, maybe a bit higher?

dimbo61

I could be wrong but I think most estate agents were Shut in May along with most high street Non essential shops and businesses.
Something to do with Covid19 !
Maybe you heard about it on the news 

macman

The 'extortionate' fee was the one you freely agreed to pay when you signed the contract. If you thought it was extortionate, why did you not negotiate a lower fee, or take your business elsewhere?
Or is it only now you have to pay the fee that it becomes 'extortionate'?

Falafels

Presumably you had a reason for selecting those estate agents above all the others...? When looking at professionals, it's important to do your research beforehand, look at reviews etc etc. I'm intrigued by your assertion that the lack of interest was due to the estate agent's negligence rather than the property being on the market in January (when properties typically look miserable, because that's what the weather's doing). Any potentially interested buyers would also have checked proximity to station etc, etc - information readily available on Rightmove - so I doubt this would have been a factor in the lack of interest.

However, it's simply not true that they provided you with no service. OK, it may not have been as personal a service as you would have liked, BUT... during lockdown, when most of the country ground to a halt, they sold your property. Many estate agents stopped working at all during this time. But yours still sold your property! Although you assert that you could have sold direct to the local authority without going through the estate agent, the fact remains that the council wouldn't have known that your property was available at all without the estate agent. That's what you pay them for.

I doubt them chasing your purchaser would have helped. Official bodies do things in their own way, and in their own time, and Covid has thrown an unexpected spanner into the works this year.

Sadly, I don't think you have a case at all here, galling as it may seem. In your shoes I'd be looking forward to the new property and your new life, secure in the knowledge that you've got a purchaser who is a cash buyer unlikely to be dropping out because of niggly details. Onwards and upwards!

Falafels

macman said:

Or is it only now you have to pay the fee that it becomes 'extortionate'?

Awww... c'mon... don't all fees become extortionate when you actually come to pay them? For instance, I prefer to have a car which isn't a death trap - but I still cry when I get my garage bills....