Offering through different estate agents

shazkhan111

I have offered on a property with an estate agents, the offer has been excepted. I dont like the person i am dealing with at the agency. The property is on with another estate agent.

Both agents have it under offer which is strange, however when speaking to the other agent they say it wasnt under offer through them but with the agent that i am dealing with.

My question is can i go to the other estate agents and stick in an offer. What are the legal implications of this. And what is the process i need to follow??

Help!!

Nicki

You will cause the seller a great deal of trouble if you do this, as he will be liable for 2 lots of commission. He probably won't agree to you doing this, and if you try to protect himself won't let you continue with either, unless you agree to pay one lot of commission.

Why don't you just ask if you can deal with one of the other people at the first Estate Agents firm if you don't like the person you are dealing with? Often they do have a back office guy who deals with the conveyancing process anyway while the front office concentrate on showing and selling houses. Unless it is a very small operation, I would have thought this is the best option.

Running_Horse

Ultimately, you're buying a house, not making friends. With luck you'll only have to speak to the agent a few times. Grit your teeth, and get on with it.

cattie

It's more important that the vendor has a decent relationship with the ea as opposed to the buyer. The vendor is the one who pays the ea & the ea will liaison with all solicitors in the chain to coordinate the sale process.

You should have very little contact with the ea once the legal process starts, unless your solicitor isn't quite on the ball & the ea needs to phone you to get you to poke them with a stick every so often.

PJD

I see no reason why the seller will be liable for two lots of commission, -
and I can sympathise with the OP as i've had more than my fair share of stress, aggression and lies from many EAs in my time.

The seller probably has a duel agency contract, - which means that if the property is sold through the other agency, the seller will owe the OTHER agency absolute sod all.

If you feel that strongly, one option would be to withdrawn your offer with this EA, and straight away ring up the other agency and say "I did make, and had an offer accepted on <house address> via "Smarmy, Slimey, Lying Estate Agents LTD" but i'm so annoyed with their level of customer service that I have just withdrawn my offer with them and would like to offer the same, via yourselves.

Either that, or ring up and speak to the site/branch manager of the current agent, tell him/her that you're happy with who you are dealing with and request that someone else handle your case, otherwise you will withdrawn your offer.

MissMotivation

PJD wrote: »

I see no reason why the seller will be liable for two lots of commission, -
and I can sympathise with the OP as i've had more than my fair share of stress, aggression and lies from many EAs in my time.

The seller probably has a duel agency contract, - which means that if the property is sold through the other agency, the seller will owe the OTHER agency absolute sod all.

If you feel that strongly, one option would be to withdrawn your offer with this EA, and straight away ring up the other agency and say "I did make, and had an offer accepted on <house address> via "Smarmy, Slimey, Lying Estate Agents LTD" but i'm so annoyed with their level of customer service that I have just withdrawn my offer with them and would like to offer the same, via yourselves.

Either that, or ring up and speak to the site/branch manager of the current agent, tell him/her that you're happy with who you are dealing with and request that someone else handle your case, otherwise you will withdrawn your offer.

Very dangerous advice!!

The property is probably on a multi agency contract which means that the agent that introduced the buyer wins the fee. No-one will benefit from the purchaser swapping EA's...in fact if the other EA is doing their job properly then they will just refer the purchaser back to the original agent.

To the OP......sometimes in life we have to deal with people we dislike, it's life, get on with it. You are not paying the EA their fee, the vendor is, so if anyone wants to complain then it should be the vendor.

Nicki

Yes there is almost certainly a multi-agency contract which almost certainly says that commission is due if the EA either introduces the buyer or handles the sale. Why would EA 2 carry out the bulk of the work pushing the matter through to sale if they aren't getting any money out of it? EA 1 introduced the buyer when all is said and done, and are entitled to commission if the property proceeds to sale to that buyer irrespective of whether they handle the remainder of the negotiations.

If you search back through this forum over the last few weeks you will see a thread where some poor seller got caught by this very situation.