Being charged to take house off market

AnotherJoe

magicmary said:

jimbog said:

If you have a contract with their estate agent? What does it say?

They sent a “letter” via email saying it is an admin fee to all buyers to cover the costs of getting the sale process going ie. producing memorandum of sale, cancelling any booked viewings and removing the property from everywhere it is marketed. It is refundable if the vendor pulls out, but if we pull out or do not proceed quickly enough it is not. 

Name and shame. They are already being paid for all that in the fee they get from their vendor. I'd have told them to jog on. After changing my trousers due to laughing so much. 

moneysavinghero

By law you cannot make it a condition of passing on offers to the seller that the person wanting to buy the property must use services offered by you or another party. You must not discriminate, or threaten to discriminate, against a prospective buyer of the seller’s property because that person declines to accept that you will (directly or indirectly) provide related services to them

The above is from section 9c of the Code Of Practice for Estate Agents. You could argue that you have been discriminated against because they would not take the property off the market unless you paid the fee. The EA will probably have an excuse though, and they probably will not be signed up to the TPO.

https://www.tradingstandards.uk/media/documents/commercial/codes-of-practice/tpo-sales.pdf

PaulCooper

Here's my thoughts for what it's worth.
Charging you to take the house off the market would be fair enough if the final selling price were reduced by the same amount, if it is purely to cover the the vendors agents sales costs, then it's extremely sharp practice, (my guess is the vendors don't know about this)
Assuming the sum involved is 'material' let's call it £1k, then I would suggest the following
The day before contract exchange, tell them you're not exchanging without a price reduction of £1k & that the vendors should seek to reclaim this from their agent (as their agent has been paid £1k by you)
Hold your nerve, the agent won't let the chain break for the £1k, the out come would then be just
Everything is fair in buying & selling houses
Paul 

davidmcn

moneysavinghero said:

By law you cannot make it a condition of passing on offers to the seller that the person wanting to buy the property must use services offered by you or another party. You must not discriminate, or threaten to discriminate, against a prospective buyer of the seller’s property because that person declines to accept that you will (directly or indirectly) provide related services to them

The above is from section 9c of the Code Of Practice for Estate Agents. You could argue that you have been discriminated against because they would not take the property off the market unless you paid the fee. The EA will probably have an excuse though, and they probably will not be signed up to the TPO.

https://www.tradingstandards.uk/media/documents/commercial/codes-of-practice/tpo-sales.pdf

I can't see any services being provided to the OP though. The EA is charging them for services they're providing to the vendor.

moneysavinghero

davidmcn said:

moneysavinghero said:

By law you cannot make it a condition of passing on offers to the seller that the person wanting to buy the property must use services offered by you or another party. You must not discriminate, or threaten to discriminate, against a prospective buyer of the seller’s property because that person declines to accept that you will (directly or indirectly) provide related services to them

The above is from section 9c of the Code Of Practice for Estate Agents. You could argue that you have been discriminated against because they would not take the property off the market unless you paid the fee. The EA will probably have an excuse though, and they probably will not be signed up to the TPO.

https://www.tradingstandards.uk/media/documents/commercial/codes-of-practice/tpo-sales.pdf

I can't see any services being provided to the OP though. The EA is charging them for services they're providing to the vendor.

They are being charged for the services of removing the property from the market. The (directly or indirectly) bit would probably cover them charging for services they are providing to the vendor anyway.

davidmcn

moneysavinghero said:

davidmcn said:

moneysavinghero said:

By law you cannot make it a condition of passing on offers to the seller that the person wanting to buy the property must use services offered by you or another party. You must not discriminate, or threaten to discriminate, against a prospective buyer of the seller’s property because that person declines to accept that you will (directly or indirectly) provide related services to them

The above is from section 9c of the Code Of Practice for Estate Agents. You could argue that you have been discriminated against because they would not take the property off the market unless you paid the fee. The EA will probably have an excuse though, and they probably will not be signed up to the TPO.

https://www.tradingstandards.uk/media/documents/commercial/codes-of-practice/tpo-sales.pdf

I can't see any services being provided to the OP though. The EA is charging them for services they're providing to the vendor.

They are being charged for the services of removing the property from the market. The (directly or indirectly) bit would probably cover them charging for services they are providing to the vendor anyway.

Nah, taking the property off (or on) the market is part of the services they're providing to the vendor. The fact that they don't get instructed to do so until the OP has paid the fee doesn't make a service for the OP. "Indirectly" is to cover things like being forced to use the EA's preferred financial advisers/solicitors etc and not merely the EA's inhouse services.