Estate agent charging a buyers fee

Scotbot

AdrianC said:

Mickey666 said:
I've certainly never experienced an EA that charges a buyers fee, but perhaps it's a new trend?

"Modern method"...?

Not necessarily.  There is a new agent, Chosen, in the Birmingham area that is charging the buyers their fee not the sellers. The fee is 1% plus vat. 
I can see this would work in the current sellers market but once things slow down I imagine buyers reducing the offer by the fee amount

AdrianC

Wanderingpomm said:

AdrianC said:

Claire_L said:

AdrianC said:

That seems fairly clear-cut to me, then. You placed the offer in the full knowledge that there was a fee, and the details of that fee did not seem important to you at the time.

You are now trying to get out of paying it on a minor technicality.

Could they refuse to hand the keys over? Probably not.
Could they then launch a court claim against you for the fee? Yes.
Would they win that claim? Probably.

How much is this fee, anyway?

I am not trying to get out of paying the fee at all. We have grounds to make a complaint against the EA for unprofessional behaviour throughout the whole process. Rather that paying the fee on completion we want to wait until our complaint has been dealt with to then pay the fee.

So you will be paying it whatever the outcome of that complaint...?

As we were not provided with their terms we are unsure where we stand on this. 

You weren't provided, and you didn't ask.

Do you now have a copy? Or have you still not asked? What does it say?

How much is it?

It doesn’t matter if they didn’t ask. T&C have to be advertised and provided for them to be legally binding. They could be on the wall of the office but only if the agreement was made in the office 

Yes, yes, yes. The EA were a bit shonky in failing to do so. We get that.

But the OP does not deny that they were aware of the fee before offering... and seems to have wilfully gone out of their way to not inform themselves of the quantum of it.

Does the EA's failure to make them aware mean the fee is invalid? Unlikely. Only a court can decide.
We do not know how much the fee is. The OP seems to be setting themselves up for an awful lot of time, effort, and blood pressure if we're talking a couple of hundred quid. If it was an order of magnitude higher than that, then they should have factored it in to their offer.

user1168934

Is it CHOICES estate agents by any chance?

If yes, then just tell them that seller pays the fees. Well, it should have been done at the time you placed the offer.

wilfred30

I might be being a bit dense here but, is the buyer's fee the same thing as the EA's commission (normally paid by the seller) or is it something completely separate?

user1977

wilfred30 said:

I might be being a bit dense here but, is the buyer's fee the same thing as the EA's commission (normally paid by the seller) or is it something completely separate?

It's (usually) the only fee the EA is collecting, so it's an alternative to them charging it to the seller.

Justonemorecupoftea

I can't imagine a scenario in which I'd accept I'm going to be charged £000s and not find out more about exactly how much/how I'd pay/when it was due etc...!!